A resident-led survey and analysis to address housing insecurity and its related health impacts on communities of color in Central and East Los Angeles County.

Inequitable access to housing and the health, employment, income, and education gaps it engenders are deeply familiar to Black and brown, undocumented, and working-class communities in Los Angeles. In order to address these inequities, Para Los Niños seeks to understand the root causes that contribute to racialized housing disparities. By engaging residents, community organizations, and city and county departments in Best Start Region 1—which includes East Los Angeles, South El Monte/El Monte, and Southeast Los Angeles—Para Los Niños will develop a strategy to address health inequities caused by gaps in affordable, quality, and stable housing.

Para Los Niños will first conduct a needs assessment to better understand available housing services and determine whether these services and resources ameliorate family stresses caused by housing insecurity. The organization will pair data collected on residents’ challenges accessing housing services and family well-being with secondary data from county and city departments and partner organizations. Para Los Niños will analyze the results in data analysis sessions with Best Start Region 1 community partners and identify solutions and key systems that could shift policy into practice. To highlight community recommendations and the data findings, Para Los Niños will also create a policy brief.

Para Los Niños will give the policy brief and recommendations to city and county departments, key funders, and service providers in the region to push for systems change. Addressing housing insecurity in Los Angeles County also requires consistent funding. To that end, this project will give institutions and organizations up-to-date information on the lived experiences of their constituents, which can then inform and strengthen policies for equitable housing supports. For affected neighborhoods, the project will help build and strengthen residents’ capacity to interpret data and participate in housing and health advocacy.