Home Ownership: Not Quite Fair

A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center reports that the recent foreclosure and home ownership crisis is affecting African Americans and Latinos in greater proportion than whites according to an article in the New York Times (May 13, 2009). The subprime crisis (that is paying more for loans than the rest of us) was in overdrive in my view with minority communities. After teaching housing for the last semester, I can tell you that this is not a new phenomenon. Minorities have been left out of the American Dream of home ownership for decades. The early days of the Federal Home Administration (FHA) saw huge disparities in who and what neighborhoods received FHA-approved loans. Neighborhoods were color-coded, i.e., red-lining, to indicate level of risk in lending. In essence this government program provide loans for people who wanted to get out of the inner city thus the rise of the suburbs and denied loans to people who wanted to stay or wanted to move into inner city neighborhoods. This is a bit of an overgeneralization but essentially this was the effect. Now why I am sharing this bit of history with you?

We run the same risk of have and have-not home ownership now. Just read this new study and I think you will understand why. There are three ways to build wealth: 1) education, 2) home ownership, and 3) starting your own business. Often the equity acquired in a home is the ticket or guarantee for the other two. We have got to fix this problem--now.

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