Abode is Proud to Celebrate Juneteenth

We are proud once again to celebrate Juneteenth – a federal holiday held each June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery. The holiday’s name combines the words "June" and "nineteenth" – the day in 1865 when 250,000 slaves in Texas were declared free, nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln.  

It remains a significant moment in American history. 

Nearly 160 years later, our nation is still confronting urgent issues of racial injustice that exist across our society – from health care and education to the criminal justice system and housing. In California, African Americans are five times more likely than white people to experience homelessness. This is reflected in who we serve at Abode. In the communities where Abode works, people identifying as Black, African American or African represent 1 to 11 percent of the general population per the U.S. Census, but represent up to 48 percent of who we serve. Racism and discriminatory policies and practices continue to persist. 

A critical part of our work is to reflect on and address the challenges of racism and exclusion that we see in our housing work. We encourage each of you to read Abode’s pledge of anti-racism, which acknowledges that homelessness is inextricably linked to structural racism, as people of color have historically been denied many of the housing and financial resources afforded to white people.  

This Juneteenth, we aim to explore the history and achievements of the African American community in order to increase our collective understanding of our country’s past and current issues around housing inequality – and how we continue our work to solve this problem. In that spirit, we observe Juneteenth to support and salute African American employees at Abode, who comprise 17 percent of our workforce along with the more than 4,000 African American participants or residents of our programs and housing sites. 

Please join us in celebrating Juneteenth.