Homelessness isn’t just a housing issue—it’s a racial equity issue, according to new research from the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Public Health. A national study by Assistant Professor Molly Richard finds that Black people in the U.S. are five times as likely to experience homelessness as White people—and Black families with children are 11 times as likely. The study also shows that structural racism helps explain why some communities have larger disparities than others.

The paper, “Structural Racism and Black-White Disparities in Homelessness in the United States,” was recently published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Professor Richard links homelessness disparities to structural racism using a multidimensional measure that captures inequities in housing, economic mobility, employment, education, and the criminal justice system.

Analyzing data from 259 urban and suburban communities, Richard combined federal homelessness counts with a structural racism measure developed by researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine. She found that communities with higher structural racism scores had much larger Black–White disparities in homelessness; the structural racism score alone accounted for roughly one-third of the variation across included cities/counties.

The paper concludes by discussing policy and practices that can reduce racial inequities in homelessness and argues that confronting structural inequality, including racism, is essential to preventing and ending homelessness—and to reducing the health disparities associated with it.