Pritzker, UIC discuss report focused on Black homelessness in Illinois

CHICAGO — Researchers from the University of Illinois joined Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker Thursday afternoon to release a report focused on socioeconomic disparities contributing to Black homelessness across the state.

For more than a year now, searchers and state leaders working to end homelessness partnered to get to the roots.

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According to Pritzker, the project called Black Homelessness in Illinois Structural Divers of Inequality, is one of the first statewide assessments to look at the disparity and the first in the nation to be released in partnership with state government.

To gather insight, the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness gathered a roundtable of experts on the Black unhoused population, including people who have experienced homelessness themselves.

According to the report, Black residents in Illinois are almost eight times more likely to be unhoused than white residents.

The gap in Illinois is one of the worst in the nation and double the national rate.

Pritzker said his administration is proposing an increase in revenue to fight homelessness in Illinois.

“This report can only go as far as we take it and now is the time for us to act,” Pritzker said.

Researchers said the report explores how structural factors, like lack of affordable housing and evictions, contribute to homelessness for Black residents across the state.

“The data and analysis in this report demonstrates that we cannot understand homelessness without taking seriously the ways structural racism shapes patterns of housing insecurity,” Ivan Arenas, with UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, said.

The study includes perspective from several people, including Blaire Flowers, who knows firsthand what it’s like not to have a permanent home.

“For years we moved around from couch to couch, clinging to fragments of stability,” Flowers said.

Pritzker said he is earmarking $250 million in the fiscal year 2025 budget, a boost of $50 million from last year to combat the structural factors contributing to racial inequalities in homelessness. A significant chunk of that money would go towards court-based rental assistance, while a smaller portion is allocated for legal aid assistance for people in eviction court.

“We’re dedicating $13 million specifically to work on reducing racial disparities in homelessness,” Pritzker said. “These programs that reach at risk populations, such as formerly incarcerated individuals and foster youth, to connect them with safe and dignified housing and support.”

Those behind the study hope their research leads to short and long-term strategies that tear down systemic barriers contributing to racial inequities in homelessness.

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