Black homeownership rates haven?t changed much in the 50 years since the Fair Housing Act
The financial collapse wiped out gains made in the early 2000s It?s been almost 50 years since Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act (FHA) of 1968, a landmark law passed in the aftermath of Martin Luther King?s assassination that banned discriminatory practices in housing.
The law was part of a spate of civil rights legislation in the 1960s?spurred by the movement led by black Americans?that sought to pave a way for African Americans to attain higher levels of education, employment, income, and health in an unequal country.
But there?s one aspect of the American dream that, despite the Fair Housing Act, remains largely elusive for black Americans?homeownership.
More African Americans than ever owned homes in the early 2000s, alongside every race and ethnicity, when easy credit and loose lending led to higher rates of homeownership, peaking in 2004 and 2005 at 69 percent. But the same lending practices that led to these all-time highs also became responsible for their lows: Since the financial crisis, the average home ownership rate has fallen below 64 percent, not much higher than it was in the 1960s.
And while every racial demographic suffered as a result of the housing collapse, none suffered more than African Americans. At the height of the bubble, nearly 50 percent of black Americans owned homes. That share has now fallen to 42.3 percent?exactly where it was in 1994?which itself is only marginally better than in 1970, two years after the FHA passed, when it w...
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