Excerpt: In its 2018 groundbreaking report, the Ad Hoc Committee examined the combined impacts of institutional and structural racism in education, criminal justice, housing, employment, health care, and access to opportunities as drivers of homelessness among Black residents in Los Angeles. Among the report’s f indings was a stark anti-Black inequity in the Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) system. PSH is an intervention that combines subsidized housing with voluntary supportive services to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness. Black residents are more likely to return to homelessness after being placed in PSH than other racial/ethnic groups. This troubling inequity—its scale and scope, as well as the reasons behind it—are the focus of our research. We are responding to the Ad Hoc Committee’s call for additional research into potential causes of this inequity and the “need to examine permanent housing programs and learn from program participants to identify the barriers driving these high rates of returns, and additional supports needed to improve equity in outcomes” (p. 42).

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