SPARC: Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities
People of color are disproportionately more likely than White people to experience homelessness in the U.S. Systemic discrimination and racism have resulted in disparities in the ways in which homeless and housing services and programs impact diverse populations.
SPARC: Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities is a collaboration with partners and communities to understand and respond to racial inequities and to jump start implementation of racial equity strategies in homeless services, programs, policies, and systems.
A SPARC report documented high rates of homelessness among people of color in our partner communities: approximately 65% of people experiencing homelessness were Black, while 28% were White. Homelessness among American Indian/Alaskan Natives in the SPARC communities was 3 to 8 times higher than their proportion of the general population. Read SPARC's report to see findings and recommendations for organizational leaders, researchers, policymakers, and community members.
We Can Help You
- Learn about different levels of racism
- Examine histories of housing discrimination, health inequities, and criminalization of communities of color
- Establish an understanding of connections between racism and homelessness
- Increase skills to initiate productive conversations about race, racism, and equity
- Examine what is happening in your program or community with a racial equity lens
- Review data and redesign programs, policies, procedures, and systems to reduce high rates of homelessness for people of color
- Envision what it means to be an inclusive and equitable organization
- Develop skills for implementing anti-racism strategies in homeless service agencies
SPARC is an initiative of C4 Innovations in partnership with The Bassuk Center on Homeless and Vulnerable Children & Youth and with support from the Oak Foundation and local funders in communities around the country.
What People are Saying about Racial Equity and Homelessness
- Responding to Homelessness: Integrating Racial Equity, podcast episode with Regina Cannon and Jeff Olivet
- Neighborhood Segregation: History, Impact & Solutions, podcast episode with Richard Rothstein and Jeff Olivet
- Uprooting a cause of homelessness — racism from the San Francisco Chronicle, CA
- Minneapolis, Hennepin County leaders join in conversation on race, homelessness from the Star Tribune, MN
- Panel discusses how racial equity can help solve homelessness from Spare Change News, MA
- Minorities hit hard by homelessness crisis in Tacoma Weekly News, WA
- Report: racial disparity in homelessness not just a result of poverty from The Columbus Dispatch, OH
- ‘Not an accident’ that people of color over-represented in homeless population, study shows from The News Tribune, WA
- Tackling the tough questions about race, homelessness in Portland from Street Roots News, Portland, OR
- Homelessness is like lots of issues: Racism makes it worse by Renee Graham, Columnist, Boston Globe
- Do we know what we are trying to fix? Racial Equity in the Movement to End Homelessness by Amanda Misiko Andere, CEO, Funders Together to End Homelessness
- What Funders Are Saying About Racial Equity and Homelessness by Kollin Min, Senior Program Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Addressing Racial Equity is Essential to Preventing and Ending Homelessness by Katie Hong, Director, Youth Homelessness, Raikes Foundation
Learn More
- Equity Initiatives
- Housing and Homelessness
- Coordinated Entry Systems Racial Equity Analysis of Assessment Data (PDF)
Learn more about our expertise and training and technical assistance approaches and offerings.