Accounting for Race and Ethnicity in Family Homelessness Research: A Scoping Review

Background: Families of color in the United States experience homelessness at a disproportionately higher rate than White families; however, little is known about how researchers account for race and ethnicity in family homelessness research. Without this knowledge, the disparate effects of homelessness may be underestimated, and the causes of racial disparities may be misattributed, making interventions ineffective for reducing racial disparities.

Objective: This systematic scoping review analyzes how researchers of family homelessness account for race and ethnicity in their conceptual framework, methodology, and analysis.

Methods: This review followed the PRISMA-ScR reporting standards. I searched PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, and ERIC for quantitative and mixed methods studies on family homelessness. Studies included in this review were (1) peer-reviewed, (2) published in 2012 or after, (3) included a housing-related outcome variable, (4) included families with at least one adult and one child (17 or younger) that (5) received any service to prevent or address homelessness in the United States (e.g., emergency shelter, case management). I used Covidence to remove duplicates, screen for inclusion, and extract data. I used the Quality Assessment for Diverse Studies (QuADS) tool to evaluate study quality.

Results: A total of 276 records were screened, and 14 studies met criteria. No reports accounted for race and ethnicity in the conceptual framework. Most reports (65%) did not disaggregate housing outcomes by race and ethnicity. All reports that disaggregated outcomes by racialized category used White as the reference group. After White, Black, and Hispanic/Latine, the category Other was the fourth most reported racialized group.

Conclusion: Using a critical race theory and QuantCrit framework, I argue that critical frameworks are essential for accurately measuring racial disparities and identifying causal pathways for disparities in family homelessness. Without putting racial disparities in family homelessness into the context of systemic racism, there is a risk that higher rates of homelessness for families of color will be perceived as being caused by cultural or individual deficits rather than systemic racism. Using White as the reference category for analysis standardizes whiteness as the norm, which can also perpetuate cultural inferiority narratives. Lastly, the lack of disaggregation in housing outcomes produces incomplete data on family homelessness, making it more difficult to identify interventions that are effective at reducing racial disparities in homelessness.