By ANDREW ADAMS
Capitol News Illinois
aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com
Tackling homelessness requires addressing racial injustice, according to a new report commissioned by the state’s Office to Prevent and End Homelessness.
The report found that Black people are eight times more likely to experience homelessness than white people. Remedying this disparity, according to the report, would require “long-term strategies that dismantle systemic barriers contributing to racial inequities in homelessness such as ending the mass incarceration of Black people.”
“When we think about the harms of racial segregation and red lining, we can draw a line to the realities of homelessness,” Christine Haley, the state’s chief homelessness officer, said in a news release.
The report, produced by the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, forms the basis of a new “action plan” from the governor, whose “Home Illinois” plan aimed at ending homelessness launched in 2022.
In his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year 2025, Pritzker proposed $250 million for the state’s homelessness prevention initiatives, a $50 million increase over the current fiscal year.
The additional money would be used to provide housing assistance, legal aid and to initiate pilot programs aimed at addressing racial disparities within the homeless population.
The “unified, whole of government approach” is set to embed state officials responsible for helping homeless individuals in at least five state departments, including the Department of Corrections and the Department of Children and Family Services.
“Homelessness is not an issue of personal failing, but of historical discrimination and structural barriers that have driven inequality for Black families across the nation and of course right here in Illinois,” Pritzker said.
Illinois had about 9,000 people experiencing homelessness on a given night in 2022, according to the latest data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Rates of homelessness are highest in the Chicago area and around Springfield.
Homelessness in the state has fallen by 41 percent since 2007, according to NAEH data. Most homeless people in Illinois, about 79 percent, were in shelters or other temporary accommodations in 2022.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
