The Opportunity Starts at Home multi-sector affordable homes campaign recently unveiled website changes that amplify the importance of racial equity in its housing advocacy work. Updated mission, vision, and goal statements are now prominently featured on the homepage, along with a new banner highlighting the campaign’s commitment to racial justice and the need for policy action. Clicking on the banner takes visitors to a new page which explains how decades of structural racism have created dramatic racial disparities in housing and how that legacy continues to shape the present landscape. Specifically, the page discusses:
- How racial disparities manifest in terms of housing affordability, housing segregation, housing quality, homelessness, and wealth building, as well as which historical policies caused these disparities in the first place;
- How racial disparities in housing spill over into other sectors, such as education;
- How some modern-day policies and practices, while not explicitly racist, in effect continue to exacerbate racial inequities;
- How the campaign’s federal policy agenda could help advance racial equity and ensure that people most in need receive the most help.
Additionally, the campaign has updated its fact sheet on the nation’s housing crisis, including more data on the disproportionate impact on people of color. These various changes were designed and built in consultation with the campaign’s Racial Equity Working Group, which includes leading national organizations from housing, education, health, food security, faith, civil rights, child welfare, social work, and criminal justice.
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