CCEH seeks to support our coalition in ensuring that skin color is not a barrier to attaining housing resources. As current events have highlighted, words are not enough to make this happen, which is why we are focused on six strategies we view as essential to transforming our system:
- Recognizing racial disparities exist
- Analyzing data for racial disparities
- Develop a Race Equity Framework for our coalition
- Formally empower people of color from partner agencies to lead
- Provide trainings targeted to address specific race equity issues
- Develop strategies for making board and staff fully representative
What the data tells us
CCEH has early in its efforts to collect data that reflects racial disparities in our homeless response system and relating to people of color. But, what we know is an important starting point: people of color constitute only 10% of Connecticut’s population, yet represent 30% of our homeless population. We also see that people of color constitute 20% of COVID-positive cases in Connecticut and 15% of COVID-related deaths. In other words, the impact of COVID on people of color is clear and needs to be addressed. For additional information on how COVID is affecting people of color, we recommend visiting the CT Data COVID case-tracking dashboard here.
CCEH is also in the early stages of collecting data relating to racial disparities connected with COVID through the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), which CCEH administers for the state of Connecticut. This is the database which tracks information on the homeless population. Going forward, providers will be able to track COVID-19 symptom and test data (test location, date of test, test result status, and test result date) for clients who are living in emergency shelter, transitional housing, or supportive housing, hotels contracted by the state, and clients who have been assessed for homelessness through the VI-SPDAT tool. We will be monitoring these results in order to:
- Allow providers to quickly enter and view test results
- Shows alerts for positive or pending results
- Tracks symptoms and onset to manage need for isolation protocol
- Provides ability to manage isolation and quarantine locations
- Collaborate with local health districts for test results data
In the long-term, this data will also allow us to:
- Analyze disparities
- Centralize and facilitate client COVID-19 management
- Provide overview of how COVID-19 affected our community
Trainings and Webinars
CCEH is proud to partner with the National Alliance to End Homelessness to offer resources that you can use to build your organization’s capacity to address racial disparities that affect your outcomes. Here are a list of current resources:
Moving forward
Please check back regularly! This is an active area of work for CCEH and we will be presenting additional resources as our efforts evolve.