The Fair Housing Act of 1968, which outlawed racial discrimination in home sales, was a major victory for people of color, especially Black Americans. When it came to buying, renting, or financing homes at that time in history, minorities frequently experienced blatant, explicit discrimination, and the law aimed to level the playing field for everyone. Although housing discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, and sex was outlawed after the law's enactment, Black homeownership rates continue to be the lowest of all racial groupings in the US. United States According to the Census Bureau, the homeownership rate for African Americans was 44.1% by the end of 2020, while the homeownership rate for white people was 74.5%, demonstrating the wide disparity.
““A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.””
More troubling is the gap's growing size. According to the 2020 National Community Reinvestment Coalition House Mortgage Report, the percentage of home loans originated for neighborhoods with a majority of minorities fell from 19.1% to 18.5% in that year. The homeownership difference between Black and White Americans is currently the largest it has been in a century, according to data from January 2022. The fact that many lenders do not keep track of race and ethnicity in relation to mortgage loans is equally disturbing. Since 2018, a sizable portion of loan documentation has been missing race and ethnicity information, according to the NCRC report data. Since 2018, 15% of all applications have been missing this crucial information, which guarantees the loan application procedure is fair and non-discriminatory.