If you are a black Pennsylvanian, you are:

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• Five times more likely to experience homelessness than your white neighbor.

• Seven times more likely to live in a homeless shelter than a white person.

• Six times more likely to be incarcerated than a white citizen.

• Five times more likely to have experienced homelessness as a youth than a white child.

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This reality is evident in the daily struggles faced by clients of the Catherine McAuley Center, 51 percent of whom are people of color. Statistics like these above illustrate the oppressive social structure we must identify, describe, and dismantle.

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The mission of the Catherine McAuley Center is to serve homeless women and children, helping them to obtain safe, permanent housing and achieve dignity. We recognize that combating institutional and structural racism is an essential factor in aiding the homeless population and eradicating future homelessness. We stand in solidarity with our clients and will use our voices to advocate on their behalf. This includes the fight for racial equity.

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To this end, the Catherine McAuley Center is working to improve understanding of individual, implicit bias as well as the history and components of structural racism. We will implement practical changes that will amplify our demand for racial equity. We commit to viewing our organizational intent through an intersectional lens in order to best achieve our goal of ministering to homeless women and children in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.

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The Catherine McAuley Center stands with the Black Lives Matter movement as we listen, learn and take action to be an active anti-racist organization.