The Framework for an Equitable COVID-19 Homelessness Response
Priorities from Latinx People
About
Why was this document created?
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, old patterns are reasserting themselves with historically marginalized communities being left out of the planning and response process. These patterns have resulted in predictable gaps in the pandemic response that have left our most marginalized neighbors at unacceptable risk. There is a clear need for further guidance to local jurisdictions who are planning for the response and recovery of the pandemic, in order to ensure that the priorities of historically marginalized communities are centered in the response.
How was this document created?
The National Working Group on Historically Marginalized Communities
The National Innovation Service (NIS) Center for Housing Justice team, along with other national leaders, started by creating a national working group on historically marginalized communities. The working group brings together a small group of national and local policy experts and advocates alongside direct service providers and people serving the communities most impacted by the pandemic. It includes representatives from mid-sized cities, rural areas, and denser cities.
Listening Sessions
Population Specific Briefs
After conducting the listening sessions, the NIS Center for Housing Justice created population-specific briefs to summarize the ideas of each of the ten communities and offer suggested actions that local jurisdictions can take in response to the concerns and priorities raised by people who are being marginalized. This document focuses on the concerns and priorities of Latinx community members participating in the listening session.
How is the document organized?
The brief is organized around 4 categories:
Space
Stuff
Staff
Systems
The four categories are based off of Dr. Paul Farmer’s Space, Stuff, Staff, and Systems Framework, a regular theme for Farmer across his work to address global health crises. These four categories are used in this brief to identify and organize essential elements within what people are experiencing and how best to respond to these experiences. You can read more about his framework here.
Under each of the 4 categories there are two sections:
What we heard
What we should do
The what we heard section summarizes the direct response of Latinx listening session participants. The what we should do section offers up suggested actions from the NIS Center for Housing Justice that local jurisdictions can take in response to the concerns and priorities raised by Latinx community members in the listening session. There are no audio clips included in the English version of this brief because the listening session was conducted in Spanish.
To download an interactive pdf of the information below, click here.
Space
What we Heard
Fund rental assistance for undocumented people facing eviction. Many people who have lost their income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are also unable to pay their rent, and landlords have started to evict people even in places where evictions have been suspended. Landlords do this because they know that undocumented immigrants are afraid of being reported to ICE and so will not file a complaint. One person said that “without papers, we don’t matter to them as much. They don’t care about leaving their tenants homeless.” There is a need for more funding for direct rental assistance, rather than funding for shelters or other forms of temporary and unstable assistance.
What We Should Do
Extend eviction moratoriums and enact rent freezes till the end of the pandemic. The most effective eviction prevention strategies available are to extend legislation or emergency declarations that create eviction moratoriums. Additionally, jurisdictions should actively look into rent freezes as the country continues to slide into an economic downturn. This should be paired with mortgage relief to owners of affordable housing buildings and targeted rental assistance to ensure that affordable housing units are not lost during the pandemic and ongoing economic crisis.
Target eviction prevention to those at the highest risk of homelessness. Eviction prevention programs often exacerbate inequity because they aren’t actually targeted towards the most at-risk of homelessness but rather operate on a first come first served basis. In order to make eviction prevention work in the environment that we’re currently operating in communities will need to ensure that the eligibility requirements for eviction prevention programs are actually matched to risk of homelessness--not just risk of eviction. Because undocumented folks are not at all accounted for in typical program design and are often ineligible for support it does make sense to create targeted prevention programs for this community. These programs will need to be administered through agencies and providers that already have the trust of the community and are able to maintain the level of anonymity required to protect individuals from ICE and other harmful and xenophobic activities.
Stuff
What We Heard
Give people money directly, especially people who are undocumented. Organizations that serve Latinx communities are underfunded and, in the context of COVID-19, many people have had the experience of applying to them for direct financial assistance and being told that they are out of funds. Moreover, people report that they have been helped a lot more during the COVID-19 pandemic by other people (friends, church members, their child’s teacher) rather than the government or large nonprofit organizations. Funding should be directed at community-based mutual aid groups and at organizations that are providing direct cash assistance to community members.
Invest in behavioral health services upfront. People spoke about the ways in which resources, including food stamps, were not used or misused by people experiencing mental illness and with substance use disorders. More investment should be made up front to address those behavioral health issues, so that people can use the other resources that are available and resources are not wasted.
What We Should Do
Widely implement simple cash transfers and other low barrier financial supports to individuals and kinship networks. Prevention and diversions services should include financial support and supportive services to kinship networks, as defined by marginalized communities, to include fictive kin. This should include flexible rental assistance or cash support to kinship networks at the same levels it is available to traditional families and direct cash transfers to individuals that can be used to support housing within kinship networks. Communities should use CARES Act funds to the extent possible within the regulations, in combination with funds divested from the police to create these flexible supports to kinship networks as a form of crisis assistance, particularly for youth and young adults within marginalized communities.
Fund and support Latinx led health organizations and those that employ Latinx practitioners. Behavioral health issues continue to be intimately linked to some communities experiences of homelessness--often in ways that directly relate to that population’s ability to access healthcare. Latinx and undocumented populations often have difficulty accessing the U.S. healthcare system because of pervasive xenophobia and inability to access affordable coverage. Additionally, there is evidence demonstrating that the needs of historically marginalized populations are not adequately accounted for in the treatment methodologies for a variety of behavioral health issues. As communities look at CARES Act spending they should allow for using investments to support services like health and behavioral health resources and target them towards historically marginalized communities. States and jurisdictions that have not expanded medicaid should be aggressively working to do so in order to increase healthcare coverage.
Staff
What We Heard
Help fewer people fully rather than many people insufficiently. Nonprofit organizations typically provide services to as many people as they can, rather than meeting the needs of a few people so they no longer have to return for services. This doesn’t help people enough in the long-term and organizations should focus on fully meeting the needs of as many people as they can.
Educate people about when they can turn to the police. People reported good interactions with the police, with them actively providing guidance and making them aware of their rights, which was in contrast to their experiences of the police in their countries of origin. However, people also didn’t know when they were at risk of being reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the police, and it is important that the Latinx community have accurate information about what they can ask from the police and when they might be at risk.
What We Should Do
Build, support, and fund dignity-based services led by Latinx and other communities most impacted by homelessness. As CARES Act dollars are used to develop new service delivery models, dignity-centered care and service delivery must become the standard across all services and systems. Dignity-centered care in this context means implementing a holistic approach that seeks to comprehensively address the short and long term needs of an individual or family; responding to the unique legal needs of those who may be undocumented by providing legal advocacy; and maintaining the level of anonymity required to protect individuals from ICE, policing, and other harmful and xenophobic activities. Communities should implement new performance management systems that prioritizes feedback from people who are experiencing homelessness, including the Latinx community, particularly undocumented individuals; routinely engage frontline staff in identifying policy barriers to serving individuals; and inform local and federal policy changes.
Systems
What We Heard
Create a safe network to connect undocumented workers with willing employers. Getting jobs and functioning in society was hard for undocumented people before. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become impossible, and people have lost their entire income and are not able to make rent. Many of the industries such as restaurants, cleaning, and childcare that undocumented people have been able to find work in are shut down, and people are afraid of applying to new jobs that are posted online, because they do not know if they can access them without legal work authorization. There is a need for a network that helps people openly look for jobs as undocumented immigrants, and for employers to openly say that they are willing to hire people who are undocumented.
Provide unemployment support to people who are undocumented. Although most undocumented workers pay taxes, and unemployment is taken out of their checks, they do not have access to unemployment benefits. This has been a particularly big issue during the COVID-19 pandemic, as most people have lost their jobs, cannot find other sources of income, and cannot rely on support from communities where everyone is unemployed. Some state governments have set up funds to support unemployed undocumented workers, but the funding for those is insufficient. Those funds should be significantly better funded, and anyone who pays taxes should be eligible for federal relief and for state unemployment.
Establish a pathway to legal work authorization for undocumented workers. Latinx communities will continue to struggle with housing, jobs, and access to other services until the people who are already working here, many in frontline and “essential” jobs, are given legal work authorization by the federal government.
What We Should Do
Address systemic barriers to employment for Latinx individuals, especially those who are undocumented, and the ways they impact access to permanent housing. Access to income and employment opportunities are one of the largest barriers to obtaining and retaining safe housing for the Latinx community, particularly those who are undocumented. When targeting ESG-CV rental assistance to marginalized communities, such as Latinx and undocumented communities, the models must consider the unique employment barriers these communities face and set flexible time limits on rental assistance. The rental assistance also needs to be paired with specialized employment navigation and supports that can work with Latinx community leaders to establish a network of trusted employers and offer legal advocacy services when needed.
Prioritize state assistance to undocumented individuals. With a broken and xenophobic federal immigration policy that restricts many documented and undocumented immigrants from accessing federally funded social welfare programs like TANF, SNAPS benefits, and unemployment benefits, communities needs to prioritize state and local funding to support unemployment benefits, and provide basic income programs for immigrants. These funds must be accessible through trusted Latinx-led community organizations that can maintain the level of anonymity required to protect individuals from ICE and other harmful activities and that can offer legal advocacy services specializing in immigration law.