The reality is that housing affordability and who experiences homelessness is largely influenced by our country’s history of racism. According to the Center for American Progress 2019 article, How America’s Housing System Undermines Wealth Building in Communities of Color, “For centuries, structural racism in the U.S. housing system has contributed to stark and persistent racial disparities in wealth and financial well-being, especially between Black and Hispanic or Latino households and white households.”
According to New Detroit, as of 2016, 77% of White families in Michigan owned their own homes, compared to 40% of Black families, 55% of Hispanic/Latino families, 56% of Native American families, and 55% of Asian American families.
Owning one’s own home is an important step to building household wealth. How has housing inequality impacted your ability to own a home in Michigan?
Today’s Challenge
Read
- Embedding Racial Equity in Housing, by the National League of Cities. (5 mins)
- https://www.nlc.org/article/2020/07/09/embedding-racial-equity-in-housing/
Watch
- Watch this video from the Urban institute exposing how housing discrimination against marginalized communities including racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, and low-income families occurs today. (4:57) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7WBiqg8Dk
- Public policy expert and author Heather C. McGhee explains how racism has a cost for everyone. Racism makes our economy worse — and not just in ways that harm people of color, says public policy expert Heather C. McGhee. McGhee shares startling insights into how racism fuels bad policymaking and drains our economic potential. “It costs us so much to remain divided.” (14:21) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCrsBtiYA4
Discussion
- How can housing discrimination result in a ripple effect touching other areas of society?
- How do you think the housing policies we have been discussing may have either benefited or harmed your family?