Patrick Marquis

You know, when you look at their—in comparison, you know, Black New Yorkers now are, I think, less than a quarter of New York City's total population, and Latinos are about a quarter of the population.

It's just stunning, the sort of disproportionate impact that homelessness has had on Black and Latino communities across the United States, but in New York City in particular.

I did an analysis when I was at Coalition for the Homeless.

Looking at some data we were able to get from the municipal government, and I found remarkably, and the most sort of stunning statistic I found was that one out of every 17 black children in New York City had spent some time in a homeless shelter over the course of a year.

I mean, one out of every 17.

I mean, for black and Latino kids in New York City and in other large cities, and particularly for low-income kids...

You know, homelessness is like a common experience.

It's not even like a bizarre thing.

It's not even something that's just kind of out of the imagination.

It's absolutely like a part of almost an expected experience for a significant percentage of our black and Latino kids.

Well, I think there's just no mistake that these problems result from some clear policy choices and acts of sort of government and politics that were made throughout this period.

The really signature moment comes in the 1980s under the Reagan administration when

Reagan instituted the most draconian cutbacks in federal housing programs that have been seen in U.S.

history.

And a nearly 80% cut in the budget authority of the Department of Housing and Urban Development occurred under the eight years of the Reagan administration.

Just devastating cutbacks that have really never been – we've never sort of recovered from them ever since.

In many ways, the federal government sort of got out of the business of significantly providing, creating affordable housing and providing affordable housing assistance beginning in the 80s and then continuing to now.

I mean, right now, only one out of five eligible low-income households in the United States is receiving federal housing assistance.

That means four out of five that need that housing assistance and qualify for it are actually not getting federal housing aid.

I mean, the short answer is no, because the problem has gotten so much worse.