Struggle against discrimination faced by Rhode Islanders without shelter, led by HOPE at Brown University
At Brown University, a student-led organisation called Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE) is making strides in addressing the persistent discrimination faced by housing-insecure individuals. The group, based at the Swearer Center, comprises over 100 students who collaborate with community partners on projects aimed at ensuring equitable treatment.
One of the key projects currently underway is led by Caleb Weinstock, a rising junior. Weinstock is analysing public housing application forms for discriminatory questions since April. His project aims to provide his OpenDoors team members with the information they need to better serve clients once in-person learning resumes.
Weinstock's analysis focuses on identifying and reporting developments with discriminatory language and indirectly solicited information. His findings are set to be compiled into a resource sheet for clients at OpenDoors.
Annelise Ernst, a rising Brown senior and incoming HOPE at Brown co-director, is reimagining a research project that was already in progress. The project aims to show with concrete numbers and personal testimony the many problems that service providers and outreach workers are aware of but lack hard evidence to support.
Ernst's academic path has been shaped by the research and advocacy projects undertaken in her three years with HOPE at Brown. During her junior year, she participated in a Departmental Independent Study Project that enabled her to conduct research on housing discrimination based on source of income in Rhode Island.
The group's research has uncovered significant disparities. For instance, Black respondents were more than twice as likely as white respondents to be charged with a crime related to their homelessness, such as loitering or congregating outside of an establishment. Additionally, Black and Latinx respondents frequently noted in their open responses that their privacy had been violated by case managers, medical providers, and government offices, an observation that did not arise at all among the open responses of white respondents.
These findings have spurred the group to share their findings with a broader audience and to develop one-pagers and other resources for all community members on a number of themes, such as actions other than calling the police that they can take when a person experiencing homelessness needs help.
Megan Smith, a member of House of Hope's outreach program, appreciates talking with students about their vision and hearing their perspectives on issues. She believes the student ideas promote deep systemic change necessary to eradicate homelessness.
The work of HOPE at Brown is particularly relevant in Rhode Island, a state that passed a Homeless Bill of Rights in 2012, granting the same rights, privileges, and access to social services to people experiencing homelessness as those who are not.
Weinstock is looking forward to using the information he finds to help people. He credits HOPE at Brown with giving him the opportunity to apply his coursework to solving a critical social problem. This summer, HOPE at Brown students are working with the House of Hope Community Development Corporation to conduct remote research projects that aim to uncover instances of systemic discrimination against housing-insecure individuals.
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