In my diary of Systemic Injustices #5, I spoke about how these assignments have forced me to open my eyes to the numerous injustices that we as American look past on a daily basis. In the short time I have worked as a real estate agent in Dayton, Ohio, I have seen how hard it can be for people to take the step of home ownership. Owning a home is no easy task. However, buying your first home in combination with being a minority can make that process even harder. Housing has always been an area where racism is unfortunately extremely common. Years of mistreatment of minorities resulted in them being confined to smaller, less desirable neighborhoods. In response, the U.S. government passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The Fair housing act was designed to address segregation in neighborhoods and to ensure that no one race was steered towards a certain area or away from another. Today, most of these issues have been solved. Blacks, whites, latinos, and others are free to live amongst one another. However the new issue in homeownership is financing. Getting approval for a mortgage is the most difficult part of buying a home. There is a combination of reports, credit scores, and examples of credit that go into a mortgage lender’s approval. One of the major components for getting a loan is how much money the soon to be homeowner makes. On average, White and Asian people make more money than blacks and hispanics. In addition to this, most people don’t learn about a credit score or how to obtain one in school. So if their parents had no credit and never learned how to establish it, chances are they won’t either. This among other things is something that all Americans should be educated on.
As things stand right now, every person is held to the same standard in the eyes of the bank. This means that everyone must disclose what they make as well as obtain their credit scores. As is the case for many minorities, they either don’t have a credit score or were not aware that it plays such an integral part of the home ownership process. In addition, minorities are often so overwhelmed when lenders require them to find so many things that they give up on the idea of homeownership. When this happens, they resort to paying rent for the entirety of their lives. Though this does give you a roof over your head, it does not help you set up yourself or your family for the future. Meanwhile, white homeowners build equity and wealth while the minorities are left renting and eventually will have nothing to show for it. I believe the biggest way to combat this issue is to help all people get access to what they need to start building their credit and saving money so that one day they may be fortunate enough to own their own home. I also believe that there need to be charitable mortgage lenders who make it a mission to educate minorities on homeownership and how they can be prepared.
References
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2019/10/income-and-wealth-in-the-united-states-an-overview-of-data
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf