The CDC\u2019s social determinants<\/a> of public health\u2014the environmental factors that affect a person\u2019s health and wellbeing\u2014are not only about health care access and quality, but also about educational access and quality, economic stability, neighborhood and built-environment infrastructures, and social and community contexts.<\/p>\n As of April 2021, 150 cities, states and health agencies throughout the U.S. have recognized a clear connection<\/a> between racism and public health issues.<\/p>\n According to a 2020 report<\/a> by the Committee for Greater LA, the COVID pandemic shook foundations and uncovered the effects of paved-over anti-black racism, including precarious employment, significant disparities in digital access, unaffordable housing, disproportionate homelessness, unresponsive government, and so on.<\/p>\n The report determined these inequalities are entrenched in structures designed to maintain the privileged by excluding and marginalizing others.<\/p>\n For example, blacks who hold bachelor\u2019s degrees made an average of $31 per hour, while whites with similar qualifications made $39 per hour. The living wage to support a family of four in LA is about $32.12 per hour, so that the average black family is not paid a living wage.<\/p>\n Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) states<\/a> that \u201cThe impact of institutional and structural racism in education, criminal justice, housing, employment, health care, and access to opportunities cannot be denied: homelessness is a by-product of racism in America<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n So what does racism have to do with homelessness in Long Beach?<\/p>\n A year after the adoption of Councilman Rex Richardson\u2019s Framework for Reconciliation<\/a>, Long Beach remains a tale of two cities.<\/p>\n Studies<\/a> show that, in the city of Long Beach, black people face greater barriers to employment than whites, are paid less than whites at every educational level, and, as they earn postsecondary degrees, the black unemployment rate increases<\/i>. In contrast, as white people of Long Beach earn higher-level academic degrees, their unemployment rates decrease.<\/p>\n Many black people in Long Beach live in overcrowded, loud, violent spaces, with low access to healthy food, and under the constant threat of skyrocketing rent, or being flipped out of their homes by gentrifying investors\u2014not to mention the threat of death by killer cops<\/a>. Some residents experience paralyzing fear, stress, anxiety, and depression from walking, driving, sleeping, and breathing while black.<\/p>\n Sadly, even the most liberal of Long Beach still shake the stick of economics in the face of a segregated city. The individualistic American ideal that if people work hard enough, they are guaranteed more access is a big, fat, white lie.<\/p>\n The truth is that historical and systemic discriminatory practices ensure some Long Beach families will never live outside the 90813 ZIP<\/b> code, where the mortality rate is the highest in the city.<\/p>\n But these truths surrounding systemic racism might not hurt that bad unless you live across the street from Harvey Milk Park, or at Venice Beach, or any other place where people sleep in the streets within arm’s reach of your million-dollar home or business. Then the truth hurts like hell.<\/p>\n The hardest truth to face may be that the effects of systemic racism are not solely endemic; racism doesn\u2019t just affect the victim. Like homelessness, systemic racism is an epidemic that affects all of us.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/07105917\/racism-timeline-1110x327.png\")