Transient Zip Codes: Utilizing Counternarratives to Examine the Compounded Effects of Structural Racism and Housing Insecurity

• In Event: Race, Space, Homelessness, and Education

Abstract

Objective. Housing instability and mobility negatively impact the educational trajectories and outcomes of students experiencing homelessness (Hallett & Skrla, 2016; Tobin, 2016). While much emphasis has been placed on student experiences and outcomes in school, less attention has been devoted to examining spaces and/or geographical locations that students traverse as they move between various residences and their primary school placement. In many large urban spaces, past housing segregation practices (e.g., redlining, blockbusting) continue to impact housing access. This paper highlights the spaces that Black youth experiencing homelessness negotiate to maintain educational access and consistency.

Theoretical Framework. Structural racism is a framework utilized to understand how public policies, institutions, and economic markets interact across geographical space and time to negatively impact the quality of life for Black and other racially marginalized populations (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Noguera & Alicea, 2021). The framework moves beyond interpersonal interactions of racial discrimination to examine formal and informal practices and policies that perpetuate inequity. As such, structural racism “calls for a deeper more nuanced examination of broader societal, systemic factors that reach beyond individual assets, deficits and behavior” (Fulbright-Anderson et al., 2005, p. 13). This paper uses structural racism to contextualize the racialized spaces that Black youth are required to navigate in low-income, disinvested neighborhoods and communities. Moreover, it employs counternarratives to examine the agency and assets that students experiencing housing instability possess and analyzes their experiences from a strength-based rather than a deficit-based understanding.

Methods and Analysis. Authors present two cases demonstrating the myriad of locales that youth experiencing housing instability must travel to meet both their basic needs and educational responsibilities. Both cases are drawn from larger research studies in Chicago and Los Angeles County that use semi-structured interviews of youth who experienced homelessness, homeless liaisons, community advocates, as well as document analysis and school site field observations to understand the experiences of youth experiencing homelessness in high school. This study’s inquiry analyzes the racialized geographic locations where participants sought out housing, food, safety, and educational resources while experiencing housing instability.

Findings. The youth’s counternarratives elevate three significant themes. First, structural inequities that Black youth experiencing homelessness encounter while pursuing their education cannot be decontextualized from the racialized spaces they are required to navigate. Second, Black youth experiencing homelessness value their education, value their community of origin, but are willing to cross zip codes to obtain housing and a quality education. Last, the educational pursuits of youth experiencing homelessness in historically Black, disinvested communities are compounded by their community’s cumulative disadvantage.

Significance of Study. Employing counternarratives with a structural racism frame allow for the development of a more robust analysis of the continued salience of race in the lives of youth and families experiencing housing instability, and counter deficit narratives that further disenfranchise and limit positive educational outcomes and housing stability for students and families experiencing homelessness. The paper findings argue that addressing the needs of Black youth experiencing homelessness cannot be addressed in isolation of the needs of the community that each youth navigates.

Authors

• Ann M. Aviles, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Earl J. Edwards, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author