California’s Housing Divide

The housing crisis in California affects residents of all races and ethnicities, but the lack of affordable housing is particularly acute for African Americans and Latinos. Skyrocketing rents in many California metro areas impose growing financial burdens, limiting opportunities for savings. Combined with rising home prices and interest rates , owning a home has become harder to afford over the past year, even as many saw growth in wages. Given the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on households of color, disparities in homeownership are expected to widen. To address these gaps, policy actions that target the causes of these longstanding inequities are necessary.

Before the pandemic, the racial homeownership gap in California was large, but it appeared to be narrowing. In 2019, the Latino homeownership rate stood at 44.1%, or 19.2 points below that of white households. The Black homeownership rate was even more worrisome at 36.8%, or 26.4 points below the rate for white households. However, Latino and Black households also saw large gains in homeownership between 2014 and 2019 (2.2 and 2.3 percentage points, respectively). Meanwhile, homeownership among Asians grew the most in this period (2.5 percentage points) and, at 59.8%, was only 3.4 points below the […]

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