Simpson Housing Service’s mission to house, support and advocate for people experiencing homelessness is grounded in our team’s deeply held belief in the dignity and humanity of each individual. Since the shelter opened its doors in 1982, staff and volunteers have welcomed guests, built meaningful relationships, and offered resources to help community members get stabilized into safe and sustainable housing.
Focused on doing anti-racist work
The Simpson team is committed to doing anti-racist work and affecting systemic change within our organization and community to advance racial equity for individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
In the face of the devastating murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, we are, with greater urgency, responding to the pain of our community, raising awareness of racial inequities, and working to dismantle the systemic racism that impacts our shelter guests, participants, staff, and the broader community.
Our board of directors adopted our first Racial Justice Plan in 2014. Since then our vision of racial equity has been a central part of Simpson’s work and the focus of Simpson’s Racial Justice Task Force (RJTF), a dedicated group of staff members who, for nearly three years, have volunteered their time to address issues of racial equity across the agency.
“Given the critical nature of this work in 2020, I’m grateful that we had this foundation built, so we weren’t starting from scratch. Racial justice work wasn’t new for us. Now we’re moving forward from what we had in place, thinking critically about how to leverage this work, and growing it,” says Executive Director Steve Horsfield.
“Our staff’s energy and commitment surrounding anti-racist work has been tremendous. There is a shift in our language. We’re owning our place as an institution in white supremacy culture and working to change it. There is so much growth and change in our perspectives as we have hard conversations and experience anti-racist work in ourselves, our organization, and in effect, our communities.”
By challenging discrimination and systemic racism experienced by BIPOC communities, Simpson helps end homelessness for individuals and families who disproportionately experience homelessness and have unequal access to resources. More than 80% of individuals and families participating in Simpson’s program are BIPOC.
Simpson is finding new ways to engage BIPOC participants in how we create and improve our programs to ensure that the services we offer are responsive to individual and family needs. Each day our staff is focusing on building relationships with the participants we serve, actively confronting unjust systems, and helping achieve housing stability.
The Racial Justice Task Force
Launched in 2018, the Racial Justice Task Force has been critical to the organization’s momentum in doing anti-racist work. Initially providing a safe space for staff members with lived experience of systemic racism to share their feelings and experiences, the group has achieved its purpose of providing active and transformational leadership in advancing racial equity across the agency.
Former Simpson staff member Shanea Turner-Smith, MSW, LGSW served a two-year tenure as the RJTF’s first coordinator. She describes the passion and dedication of its members:
“This task force, from the moment it started, demonstrated a strong work ethic, a willingness to learn and grow with one another, and most importantly, their ability to dream big. They worked together to envision a new reality, a new racial equity framework for all aspects of the agency’s work, that ultimately answered the question, ‘What would it look like to have anti-racist services, practices, and policies at Simpson Housing Services?’ They never took any future possibilities off the table.”
The work of the Racial Justice Task Force is grounded in its purpose statement:
We acknowledge the existence of historical and systemic racism that has significant ramifications on our society, including racial inequities extant in the current state of homelessness. This means that racial equity is intrinsic to our mission to house, support, and advocate for people experiencing homelessness and we are committed to eradicating racism wherever we are able — in the communities we are a part of, the communities we serve, within our own agency, and as individuals.
Simpson’s progress and long-lasting engagement in this work are reflective of our staff as a whole, according to Turner-Smith.
“It’s the people we hire. We’re like family. We can be our authentic selves with one another. This is something seldomly experienced in the workplace. We create the spirit of Simpson. We share values that allow Simpson to press the pedal to the metal and go deeper with our anti-racist work. Simpson is writing a new page of history as an agency and soon will be the leading organization that works to end homelessness using an anti-racist framework and approach,” she says.
Our work in advancing racial equity
Through a collaborative effort, the Simpson team has made significant organizational changes in hiring, training, and programming which have supported equity and improved outcomes for BIPOC staff members and participants.
The Simpson team has accomplished the following outcomes:
- Included the leadership, voice, and expertise of the Racial Justice Task Force coordinator and team members in all aspects of agency planning and programming.
- Increasing hiring of staff from communities we serve. 49% of Simpson staff members identify as BIPOC.
- Focused on the mentorship and promotion of BIPOC staff to management positions. 36% of leadership identify as BIPOC.
- The Racial Justice Task Force created an annual racial justice training requirement for staff. The committee has played a key role in organizing and facilitating trainings focused on anti-racist work across the agency.
Our recent conversations and initiatives
We are holding steadfast to our values, embracing the dignity and uniqueness of each person and advocating against the injustices of society. There is momentum across the agency to actively engage in anti-racist work that will provide lasting change.
Together, staff members have engaged in hard, authentic conversations about white supremacy culture and anti-racist work.* We have developed a deeper level of trust, new language to talk about this work, and a shared commitment to doing anti-racist work at a personal and organizational level.
- Staff can participate in two voluntary groups that meet weekly to address racism individually and collectively: a conversation circle based on Layla F. Saad’s book, Me and My White Supremacy, and the Identifying Racism sharing and listening space.
- Staff have also started a monthly book club focused on current issues and reflections related to racial equity.
Simpson is applying a racial equity lens to all processes across our agency with the goal of improving how we support BIPOC staff and participants. Examples include:
- Our staff is creating equitable tenant screening requirements and working with landlords to create improved participant access to housing.
- Aligning with our organizational values, recent staff conversations resulted in recognizing Juneteenth and Indigenous People’s Day as paid holidays in our staff calendars.
Moving forward
As we look ahead, Simpson’s Development and Racial Justice Task Force Coordinator Jessica Lamb provides perspective and leadership for the agency’s racial equity work:
“We’re not going back. Everyone is healing. We’re recalibrating and moving toward equity, doing anti-racist work. We strive for authentic relationships and we’re looking for innovative approaches to support our participants. Everything is on the table. We are asking: ‘How do we provide equitable systems that support participants? Where are places that we can advocate for our participants? How do we get everyone’s voices at the table?’ Our goal with this anti-racist work is that it is so embedded in our culture that a separate task force is not needed at all.”
With this shared vision, we move forward to continue our anti-racist work and create systemic change.
Following the recommendation of the Racial Justice Task Force, Simpson will further advance its racial equity work by hiring a qualified full-time Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & Human Resources Director. This individual will focus on building cultural competencies across all functions of the agency. We are aiming to begin the hiring process in early fall.
We are also exploring how to bring racial equity into the agency’s strategic process. Simpson is also focused on recruiting BIPOC community members and people who have lived experience of homelessness for Simpson’s Board of Directors.
With the goal of engaging many voices in this work, Simpson will also be launching a Voices of Simpson blog. We hope to include the experiences of staff, volunteers, board members, and community members in a dialogue about anti-racist work.
“We are deeply grateful to the members of the Racial Justice Task Force, past and present, who have challenged us to continue to evolve our agency to the benefit of the community we serve” says Steve.
We invite everyone in the Simpson community to join us in doing anti-racist work, dismantling systemic racism, and achieving racial justice.
How you can help
Contact Racial Justice Task Force Coordinator Jessica Lamb at jlamb@simpsonhousing.org with questions or more information.
Click here to view our Resources for Self-Education webpage. Find books, podcasts, and opportunities for conversation that will guide you in doing personal and collective anti-racist work.
*Our shared language and practice of anti-racist work is based on the work of Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist. Our shared language, discussion, and efforts to dismantle white supremacy culture are based on work by Donte Curtis, Catch Your Dream Consulting.