SAN FRANCISCO: A new report finds the nation’s homeownership rate appears to be stabilizing, but African Americans aren’t sharing in the recovery.
A report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies shows the black homeownership rate of 42 percent was nearly 30 percentage points lower than that of whites in 2016. The center says the disparity between whites and blacks has never been this high in 70-plus years’ worth of data.
Experts say historic underemployment and a foreclosure crisis that hit black communities hard are among the reasons why African Americans are missing out on a quintessential part of the American dream.
The Urban Institute’s Alanna McCargo says it has historically been harder for African Americans to own homes, and whatever progress was made in recent years has disappeared.
The U.S. homeownership rate peaked in 2004.
Source: AP