Housing & Racial Justice

September 2022: A Tale of Two Cities

During the month of September, we’ll review some key divisions in our community, and then focus on solutions provided in the 2020 Act Rochester Hard Facts Update. Follow along on social media for regular posts and get ready to engage in some hard work and conversations.

From the United Way’s Racial Equity Challenge (Day 15):

Over the past 15 days, we have explored how Rochester is “a tale of two cities.” On one side, our community boasts incredible innovation, some of the best academic institutions in American, comfortable living environments, relatively low unemployment rates, and plenty of recreational opportunities. Yet on the other side, the 2020 Act Rochester Hard Facts Update highlights significant disparities across our region that disproportionately affect Black and Latino people.

RESOURCES

REFLECTION QUESTIONS & ACTIVITIES

 

August 2022: Education and School Age Children

The United Way’s Racial Equity Challenge takes us to the heart of education for August’s equity moments. From Brown v. Board of Education to current Democrat & Chronicle education journalist and author, Justin Murphy … check out the links below and follow us on social media for bite size invitations each week learning about why and how inequity in education started and how it continues to impact children in Rochester, especially those from families experiencing homelessness.

Did you know? Rochester has the most economically segregating school district border in the country, walling off the high-poverty education system from its affluent suburban districts. - EdBuild

RESOURCES

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  • When was the first time you had a teacher who was not the same race as you? Have you ever?

  • What were the messages that you received from American history books about your own culture? What about cultures other than your own?

  • In the video above, Sumner makes suggestions at the macro, mezzo, and micro level. What can you do in your own community to support the educational experiences of Black and brown children?

July 2022: ACES

This month we’ll continue our focus on children by exploring adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. ACEs are traumatic events that occur in childhood (ages 0-17) that impact a person's brain development and can have a lasting effect on their mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing into adulthood. (From & following the United Way’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge Day 13: Adverse Childhood Experiences.)

Follow along on social media (Facebook & Instagram) to learn more and further engage with this month’s racial equity topic!

RESOURCES

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  • What were some of your biggest challenges growing up? How did you overcome them?

  • What is your ACE Score (see link in resources)? How have your childhood experiences your health and wellness as an adult?

  • How can you use the ACE research in your daily life? As a FPGROC volunteer? In your work or faith community?

June 2022: Early Childhood Opportunity Gap

This month we’ll focus our equity moments on the opportunity gap, especially in young children and families. Early childhood is one of the most critical times for developing healthy minds and bodies. Let’s begin by defining our terms:

The opportunity gap is the way social and economic factors outside a person’s control result in lower rates of success in a variety of life aspirations. These factors are directly related to race, ethnicity, neighborhood, family income, and many other social determinants and are set in place long before a child enters kindergarten. The achievement gap compares standardized test scores - by race, gender, high school completion rate, etc.

 

THE GOOD NEWS …

Progress has been made in recent years! Since 2010, more than 40 states have instituted state-funded preschool programs and results show that children who attend a high-quality early learning program gain four months of learning, on average. In addition, children see positive gains throughout their lives including improved reading and math scores, better graduation rates, and higher income later in life. And locally, “Rochester’s pre-kindergarten programs, through both RCSD and community-based organizations, are nationally known for their quality” (ROC the Future)

HOWEVER …

There is still more to be done to provide equitable access to resources that support healthy early childhood development, especially in Rochester.

 

May 2022: Racial Wealth Gap

The last few months of Equity Moments “have explored structural and institutional inequities that lead to negative and disparate outcomes in health, environmental issues, and housing. Related to each of these challenges is the bigger picture of overall wealth inequity that has grown from racism and discrimination” (United Way’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge Day 11: Racial Wealth Gap).

This month we’ll explore the causes, impacts, and potential solutions of wealth inequity nationwide and here in Rochester. Follow along on social media or check out the resources below for a deep dive.

RESOURCES

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • How do you perceive your family's success/lack of success?

  • What new perspectives do this month’s resources provide about your own family’s basis of wealth?

  • For local involvement: check out the City of Rochester REAL Resources

April 2022: Environmental Justice

From the air we breathe to the proximity of landfills, highways, grocery stories, and gardens near the place we call home, the environment plays a huge role in our physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual well-being. Access to clean air, water, healthy food, and green spaces like tree-lined streets and local and national parks are all racial justice issues. Environmental injustices such as these negatively affect communities of color much more than predominantly white communities, and therefore the families FPGROC walks alongside.

From Day 10: Environmental Justice of the 21 Day Racial Equity Challenge, “The effects of environmental injustice are complex and far-reaching. We can take on this issue together through education, advocacy, and action.” Start with this video and follow us on social media for more connections, stories, and action steps!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • What issues of environmental injustice exist in your community?

  • How might access to clean air, water, healthy food, and green spaces impact families at risk of or experiencing homelessness?

  • What steps can you take to begin addressing environmental injustice?

RESOURCES

On air, water, food (farming, food systems, and access to healthy food), trees, environmental hazards, and green spaces.

March 2022: How Racism Impacts Your Health

From Day 9 of the United Way of Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes’ 21-Day Equity Challenge: Overall health is dramatically impacted by racism and discrimination. Social determinants of health—the conditions in which people are born, live work, and age—account for 80% of a person’s health and wellness (while just 20% is attributed to clinical or medical care).

Follow along on social media (Facebook & Instagram) to learn more and further engage with this month’s racial equity topic!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • Think about access to healthcare in your community. Is it easy and affordable to visit a doctor? If not, what barriers prevent people in your community from receiving the healthcare that they need?

  • Have you ever struggled to get the health care you needed? What would it be like for you to need healthcare, but not receive it?

February 2022: Housing Inequity

DID YOU KNOW? Dr. Walter Cooper, a research scientist at Kodak and the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rochester, answered ads for 69 apartments in 1954 and was refused at all of them.

Home ownership plays a significant role in family wealth, enabling families to build equity  that is passed down to future generations.  “Redlining, a term that comes from the Federal Housing  Administration (FHA) using red ink to outline maps of undesirable neighborhoods— predominately consisting of Black and Latino families—to unfairly mark them as high-risk  for loan default and thus give banks a “reason” to deny a loan, segregated Black, Latino and  families of color from white families in the growing suburbs after World War II.

People who did not have the opportunity to build wealth through home ownership because of redlining, housing discrimination and predatory loans are hundreds of thousands of dollars behind in wealth compared to their white counterparts, and continue to face these and other discriminatory practices today. Historically redlined neighborhoods have less access to educational opportunities, healthcare, employment, and public transportation. Learn more through the United Way’s Racial Equity Challenge Day 8: Housing Inequity, or using the resources below.

RESOURCES

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • How do you think housing policies have either benefited or harmed your  family? 

  • Is your neighborhood or community primarily made up of one racial group or ethnicity? If so, do you think discriminatory housing policies may have affected this? How?

 

January 2022: From Trauma to Healing

Trauma-informed care is woven into the fabric of FPGROC’s approach to case management, but what is trauma-informed care and how is it related to racial equity? Throughout January we’ll be drawing from Day 7 of the United Way’s Racial Equity Challenge: From Trauma to Healing.

Racial equity related trauma-informed care begins with understanding how racism and racial oppression are traumatic for People of Color:

“Racial oppression is a traumatic form of interpersonal violence which can lacerate the spirit, scar the soul, and puncture the psyche.”

-Kenneth V. Hardy, PhD

ACTION & QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • Practice asking: “What happened to you?” rather than “What is wrong?”

  • Consider a time when you attributed a negative behavior to a person rather than what they might have experienced: how could you think or react differently in a similar situation in the future?

  • If your community and/or school are racially segregated, has this resulted in fewer interracial friendships? What are some of the consequences of missing out on cross-racial friendships?

  • Check out these articles by Hardy and Williams. What resonates with you in the articles? What feels uncomfortable?

  • Follow along on social media for further engagement!

November 2021: Race & Discrimination

“For many people, discrimination is an everyday reality.”

-American Psychological Association

Sorting is normal and helps children and adults make sense of their world. When we place values on sorted categories, we create perception and eventual action - like discrimination - based on those values. Throughout the month of November, we’ll follow Day 6 of the United Way’s Racial Equity Challenge: Race and Discrimination. The definition of discrimination is generally understood, but the reasons why discrimination happens and appropriate and helpful responses to it are more complex. Join us on social media as we share about and engage this topic (Facebook and Instagram)!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • In what ways does discrimination interfere with the functioning of teams, communities, or groups that you work with?

  • When you consider the four levels on which internalized racism operates (inner, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural), where do you imagine more possibilities for change?

  • What values were you taught or do you continue to apply to people and families living in poverty or who experience homelessness? How does this impact your engagement with FPGROC and/or volunteerism and advocacy in your community?

October 2021: Levels of Racism

OCTOBER 2021: EQUITY MOMENT (LEVELS OF RACISM)

Racism is more than interpersonal interactions between individuals based on personal prejudice or intentional bias. The United Way’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge writes:

“A different and emerging explanation of racism contends that interpersonal racism is actually a symptom of a more fundamental system of racism—an array of cultural norms and institutional policies and practices that routinely produce racially inequitable outcomes, often without individual intent or malice.”

The following images and descriptions are from Street Knowledge Teaching Resources (with permission) and this The Four I’s of Oppression document. Follow us on social media (Facebook and Instagram) to engage the content in bite-sized pieces, then comment, share, and start the conversation within your family and friend networks.

Ideological Oppression

An often generalized system of beliefs or ideas a dominant group believes about itself or about a non-dominant group.

Institutional Oppression

Using the laws, the legal system, the education system, public policy, media, political power, etc... to maintain ideology intentionally or unintentionally.

Interpersonal Oppression

The idea that one group is better than another and has the right to dominate or control the other. This is what we do “up close” to one another.

Internalized Oppression

The oppressor doesn't have to exert any more pressure, because we now do it to ourselves and each other

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • Were the definitions offered consistent with what you understood them to mean? How did they differ? What haven’t you previously considered?

  • How do you see internalized racism impacting you personally?

September 2021: Talking About Race

September’s Equity Moment comes directly from and is inspired by DAY 4 of the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge: Talking About Race. “Many people think that talking about race is “taboo” or have been taught to avoid the topic all together. Others may shy away due to lack of experience or ability to articulate their feelings on the topic.” Follow us this month on social media (Facebook and Instagram) to engage the content in bite-sized pieces, then comment, share, and start the conversation within your family and friend networks.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  • Am I comfortable engaging in a conversation about race with those who are the same race as me? How about a conversation about race with someone who is a different race?

  • How often have I been in social settings where the majority of individuals have been of a different race or ethnicity?

  • When I hear people in my circles making biased comments, do I speak up?

  • Have I ever been worried about looking biased when I interact with people who are different from me?

ACTION IDEAS

August 2021: Privilege

Peggy McIntosh (right) is the former associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Founder of the National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity). Watch McIntosh’s TED Talk here.

Throughout the month of August we’ll be exploring PRIVILEGE and its impact on racial equity, following DAY 3 of the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge.

privilege: a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor : PREROGATIVE (Merriam-Webster)

Check out the videos below, use the reflection questions and activity for personal journaling or conversation with trusted family or friends, and follow along on Facebook and Instagram. Finally, don’t miss Equity Moment or FPGROC Program Updates: be sure you’re on our mailing list for our monthly newsletter!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  1. What did you notice about your personal reactions while reading and viewing today's material? What do these reactions tell you about your experiences?

  2. Looking at the community where you grew up or where you are currently living, what do you notice about how privilege and marginalization have shaped the community and your opportunities?

  3. Families living paycheck to paycheck are often one incident away from experiencing homelessness. What has kept you from experiencing financial or housing hardship?

ACTION IDEAS

Make a list of your own privileges. Check out Peggy McIntosh’s original list here or use the United Way’s recommended Personal Privilege Profile handout.

“Most everyone can identify at least one privilege that they hold; examples may include ability status, education level, wealth, gender identity, job status, marital status, the community that you live in, and more.”

21-Day Racial Equity Challenge, Day 3

July 2021: Bias

This month, we're inviting you to engage in DAY 2 of the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge: Exploring Bias. Remember to follow along for weekly posts on social media, too.

Understanding unconscious bias helps us to understand ourselves, and when we know more about ourselves, we can be more aware of others and open to their experiences. Learning about our own implicit biases—the positive and negative attitudes, stereotypes, and feelings we have about people and groups that are different than ourselves—is an important part of everyday life. This understanding also impacts the ways we interact with guest families. The biases that we hold, even those that are unconscious, cause us to act in ways that are preferential or sometimes offensive or discriminatory.

Check out the videos below, and consider the reflection and action ideas to help identify your unconscious bias.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

  1. What messages did you learn about race from your family, school, or friends?

  2. How might awareness of your implicit bias affect your future actions and decisions?

  3. What biases do you have about families facing homelessness? Are they rooted in assumptions regarding work ethic? Parenting choices? Finance management? What else?

ACTION IDEAS

  1. Take the Project Implicit Bias Test from Harvard University (select Race after agreeing to terms)

  2. Pay attention to assumptions and associations that occur in your brain when you see or encounter people who are different than you in the grocery store or on the street. Where do these thoughts come from? Are they true? Do you want to maintain these biases or make an effort to change them?

June 2021: Race & Equity

"We can no longer talk about homelessness in relation to just poverty. We must be explicit that housing insecurity is deeply connected to structural racism."

Amanda Andere, CEO, Funders Together to End Homelessness and keynote at Family Promise National's 2021 Innovation Summit.

At the start of 2021, FPGROC convened a Racial Equity Committee comprised of staff, board, and community members as part of our ongoing effort to recognize and respond to the systemic inequities impacting each of us and our families. Please join us in this work!

This month, we're inviting you to engage in DAY 1 of the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge. Watch "Myth of Race," a short video introducing the concept of race, journal your responses to the questions below, and follow us on social media for more resources and prompts.

  1. When did I first become aware of my racial identity?

  2. How does my race impact me on a day-to-day basis?

RAIHN / FPGROC Statement on Racial Equity

Dear Friends of RAIHN,

Six months into the COVID pandemic and life has changed for all of us. It has been a time of reflection, as much of our daily life has been put on hold and we witness the impacts of a global health crisis, disproportionately affecting people of color. It has also been a time of increased awareness of the divisions in our country, with weekly accounts and images of senseless violence inflicted against African Americans.

So how does this relate to RAIHN and the services we provide to the community? As our volunteers and staff can attest to and statistics bear out, a majority of the families served by RAIHN, whether homeless or facing potential homelessness, are people of color. The following are percentages of families served in 2018 and 2019: 2019 – 77% African American, 10% Hispanic/Latino, 8% Caucasian, and 5% multi-racial, and 2018 – 74% African American, 11% Hispanic/Latino, 9% Caucasian, and 6% multi-racial. Not coincidentally, the majority of children and families who experience homelessness in the City of Rochester are people of color. The violence against black individuals and the disproportionate deprivation of adequate housing for people of color both result from institutional or systemic racism.

Systemic racism is particularly apparent in Rochester, as we live in one of the most racially segregated cities in America. This bears out when studying housing in Rochester, both historically and currently. In reviewing our community’s history, restrictive racial covenants and redlining that occurred through the Fair Housing Administration and VA loans in the 1930’s and 40’s and continued with the 1968 Fair Housing Act translate directly into one of the highest rates of concentrated extreme poverty in the nation. In fact, those areas of the city that were redlined in the 1930’s remain 92% occupied by people of color today…92%. Which means a divided city, one side more likely to be white, privileged, less likely to be stopped or harassed by law enforcement and the other more likely to be black or brown, marginalized, and at greater risk for racially charged encounters with or death from law enforcement.

As a society and as an organization within the greater society, we have a choice when we think about race and those invisible, but marked lines that separate our neighborhoods. Either we believe there is an inherent reason that people of a specific ethnicity or race are disproportionately poor, unemployed or underemployed, in prison, in inadequate housing, or homeless, or we believe that there are systemic causes at play. As Claas Ehlers, CEO of Family Promise states, “We cannot accept the former, but then we must NOT tolerate the latter.”

And we will not tolerate it. RAIHN believes Black Lives Matter and we support the Rochester Black Agenda Group’s declaration that “racism is a public health crisis”. As we work toward ensuring every family has access to safe, adequate housing, we will do so in a way that promotes inclusion and equity. This fall, RAIHN will convene a Racial Equity and Advocacy Committee to ensure our actions reflect our commitment. The purpose of this committee is threefold: (1) Encourage conversations on racism with staff, the Board of Directors, and volunteers; (2) Review internal policies, procedures, and practices to ensure racial equity is a core element of RAIHN’s work; and (3) Build capacity within the organization to enact change by advocating for relevant policies that improve the health and lives of Black and Brown communities.

Please, join RAIHN in its stance against racial injustice, for Daniel Prude and his family, for the families we serve, and for all families affected by inequality and racism in our community.

Sincerely,

Kim Hunt-Uzelac, Executive Director, Sharon Burke, RAIHN Board Chair, & RAIHN Board of Directors

There will come a time when racist ideas will no longer obstruct us from seeing the complete and utter abnormality of racial disparities. There will come a time when we will love humanity, when we will gain the courage to fight for an equitable society for our beloved humanity, knowing, intelligently, that when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves. There will come a time. Maybe, just maybe, that time is now. (Excerpted from “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America", by Ibram X. Kendi.)

Racism is a Public Health Crisis

Dear RAIHN Community,

RAIHN witnesses the chronic inequities and injustices in Rochester and the nation through the eyes of each family we serve. We witness the inadequate housing, the substandard schools, the lack of basic primary health and dental care, the inability to be heard and listened to. We witness how the families we serve are largely outside the mainstream network of opportunities.

We also witness the invisible walls that separate us as human beings - city and suburbs, white and black, affluent and poor. It is time to step out of our comfort zones, break down these walls, and truly work on fundamental change. If we want to achieve change, true structural change, we need to start doing the honest, difficult work of addressing the inequities and injustices.

RAIHN commits to this work. We commit to looking inward as an organization and assess changes we can take to advance racial equity and end oppression. We commit to extending compassion, justice, and empathy to all and doing our part to transform our world into a system that works for everyone. Join us in making this commitment.

In peace and solidarity,

Kim Hunt-Uzelac, Executive Director & Sharon Burke, Chair of BOD

The Board of Directors and staff at RAIHN join the Greater Rochester Black Agenda Group in declaring that racism is a public health crisis.

RAIHN commits to take action and assess changes we can take to advance racial equity and end oppression.