Giving Compass' Take:

• The Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy prepared a report on the Greater Grand Rapids Latinx communities' perceptions and experiences to give insight for inclusive growth.

• Why is disaggregated data important to creating place based solutions?

• Learn more about racial equity and community based models.

Inclusive growth is about ensuring prosperity for all. It’s about decreasing inequities and creating pathways to economic success for all residents in a community.

To bring these inequities to light, we need to look at data that are disaggregated (i.e., broken down) by race and ethnicity. Looking at overall population numbers is not enough. Averages frequently don’t tell the whole story — in fact, they often obscure the different realities that people in the same community experience.

The purpose of the report is to understand Greater Grand Rapids’ Latinx residents’ perceptions and experiences on a variety of topics. The VoiceGR and VoiceKent surveys gathered information on topics such as housing, education, health, and food accessibility from residents in the greater Grand Rapids area and Kent County, Mich. respectively.

Key Findings

  • In 2016 and 2017, Latinx respondents had the lowest levels of educational attainment of all racial/ethnic groups.
  • In 2017, Latinx respondents were about equally as likely as other racial/ethnic groups to have full-time and part-time jobs, yet were more than twice as likely not to have health insurance.
  • Latinx respondents were less likely than White respondents to report they could meet their basic needs “very well” based on their current income. In 2017, Latinx respondents were the least likely of all racial/ethnic groups to say their families have access to enough fruits and vegetables based on their current income.
  • Two-thirds of Latinx respondents rated their mental and emotional health as “excellent” or “good” — the same rate as White respondents. However, Latinx respondents were more than twice as likely as White respondents to say they could not recognize signs and symptoms of a mental health condition in themselves or others.
  • In both 2016 and 2017, Latinx respondents were the least likely of all racial/ethnic groups, and only half as likely as White respondents, to say they felt “very safe” in their neighborhoods/communities. Latinx respondents who were near or below twice the federal poverty level were twice as likely as other Latinx respondents to say they feel “very unsafe” or “somewhat unsafe” in their neighborhoods.
  • Themes emerged across responses to open-ended questions regarding a neighborhood’s biggest strengths and problems, including a sense of community vs. lack of community, tranquility vs. noisiness, cleanliness vs. lack of cleanliness, proximity to resources vs. distance from resources, feelings of safety and lack of crime/violence vs. feelings of insecurity and presence of crime/violence.