Equity

Expanding access to the housing market is unlikely to do much to close the racial wealth gap. Here’s why.

Homes owned by people of color are appraised for less than identical homes owned by white families. Nationwide, that’s led to more than $150 billion in lost equity. How can we stop appraisal bias?

A lot of conversations about the racial wealth gap focuses too much on homeownership as the only solution. It’s much more complex. Shelterforce’s Miriam Axel-Lute talks with Anne Price, president of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.

Solutions to address racial wealth inequality have often focused on behavioral changes and individual choices, minimizing efforts to dismantle structural barriers to wealth accumulation for Black Americans.

Seventy-one percent of jobs that pay $40,000 and above require a four-year degree, says Maurice Jones. That requirement is “having a huge, huge adverse impact on Black talent earning their way into the middle class.”

American Hospital Association’s NOVA awards honor hospitals’ success in addressing social determinants of health.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are under a congressional mandate to improve investment in three specific kinds of housing markets—but Congress didn’t say by how much, and advocates say they could be doing far more.

In Oakland, the Black Cultural Zone ties together art and community ownership to prevent gentrification and heal trauma.

Cynthia Wiggins was introduced to housing organizing earlier on in life and has been ceaseless in her efforts to help her community.

Idalia Rios began her organizing career advocating for her son, who has a speech delay. In the process, she learned that even when advocacy begins with your own family, you have to fight for the class, school, and larger community to achieve lasting change.

Once homeless, Donna Price persevered with unshakable strength, which landed her in a position she once couldn’t imagine.

There are countless women who are driven to turn up the volume of their voices when faced with unfair circumstances. As the publisher of Shelterforce, I am privileged to lead a publication that makes way for many of these voices to be heard.