The Homeless are not Black

I work as a therapist in a homeless shelter in Texas and I'm astounded by some of the serious misperceptions of the homeless which are held by the public.  A recent donor asked that we photograph families in the shelter receiving items which had been donated and specifically requested that we please "include some people who are not Black".  I was appalled.

I also watched the movie, "The Soloist", recently and couldn't help but notice that as they panned the homeless community within a social service program they presented them as being predominantly Black as well.  I have not worked with Los Angeles' homeless population, nor studied their demographics, but I highly doubted they were largely Black.  A Wikipedia article discusses the demographics of Los Angeles' Skid Row:  "The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 25.5% White, 16.7% African American, 0.4% Native American, 5.8% Asian, 40.7% from other races, and 2.0% from two or more races.  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 51.4% of the population."

The demographics of people in any given homeless shelter reflect the demographics of the area in which the shelter is located.  They are not "Black".  In Texas, the residents of our shelter are largely a mixture of White, Hispanic and Black, with an occasional resident of another race, ethnicity or culture.   By contrast, look at the residents of a homeless shelter with different demographics.  Look at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless.  Boulder, Colorado is 84% White.  You see this reflected in the faces of their shelter residents, who are primarily White.  

Homelessness, like most other social ills, is colorblind. 

Comments

[Dave Ray]

People don't seem to realize that poverty is colorblind as well. I don't have any statistics, but I would say that people of color are probably over-represented percentage wise as a whole when it comes to poverty. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they make a beeline for Social Services. whether because of pride, lack of knowledge of the Social Services, lack of presence of the services. or many other factors.

The remark the person said about the photos is blatantly racist. Are they trying to convey the message that Black people aren't the only people who receive services? What kind of crap is that? It's okay to portray diversity vis a vis though who receive services, but the exception of a particular ethnic group should not have even been brought up.

[Kellen]

Exactly.