Housing discrimination over hundreds of years is considered one of the biggest drivers of economic inequality in the US between whites and Blacks. White households own nearly 85% of total wealth, Black households own 4.4% and Hispanics 3.2%, according to Federal Reserve data. The value of Americans’ homes is one of the key assets in the accumulation of this wealth and it is still considered a path to the middle class. The gaps in home ownership and the market value of residential property between Blacks and whites can be traced back to discriminatory federal housing policies and discriminatory practices among real estate brokers and bank lenders. Housing discrimination remains commonplace in the US. For instance, Black-owned homes, especially in predominantly Black neighborhoods, are appraised at lower values and qualified African American and Latino borrowers are regularly denied mortgages at higher rates than their white counterparts.
Join POLITICO Live for its fourth town hall in the Confronting Inequality in America series. The Housing Gap town hall will bring together policymakers, lawmakers, advocates and mortgage industry leaders to explore various approaches for eliminating housing inequality as the US attempts to recover from the COVID recession.
On Tuesday, December 15 at 10 AM PT, POLITICO video journalist Eugene Daniels and POLITICO politics editor Teresa Wiltz will co-moderate the conversation.
Featured speakers TBA.