Resolving the U.S. Housing Crisis
Mike Green
Cultural Economist helping leaders build a common ground of understanding and collaboration on race and economic equity
A housing unit, according to the Census Bureau is a "house, apartment, mobile home or trailer," as defined in the report "Tracking the American Dream: 50 Years of Housing History from the Census Bureau," published in 1994.
Throughout American history (from the 1862 Homestead Act, through which the federal government gave away 270 million acres of land) the government has centered and prioritized White American ownership of land and housing. The result is evident still today, more than eight generations after the Civil War.
Recently, an investigative study by REVEAL NEWS titled, "40 ACRES AND A LIE," revealed the unsurprising evidence that the U.S. government didn't just deny Black people an economic foundation of land while giving lands to White supremacists who had enslaved them, it also took lands away that it had previously awarded (through the congressionally funded Freedmen's Bureau) to newly freed Black people.
A tiny percentage of the four million Black people actually received the promise of 40 acres that military leaders were offering on behalf of the U.S. government when they were emancipated. There are about 1,200 documented instances of lands in various amounts awarded to named Black people.
The U.S. Department of War was in charge of administering the benefits of the Freedmen's Bureau and ensuring the safety of the Black people receiving those benefits. This included safeguarding those who received portions of land.
A new investigation of the Freedmen's Bureau records reveals how those lands were subsequently taken away after President Andrew Johnson assumed power in the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination ... and the White "Radicals" in Congress that had created the Freedmen's Bureau lost power a few years later.
Housing is an essential core component of the American Dream of economic prosperity and generational wealth. Throughout the 20th century, the housing industry continued to grow, but the population grew much faster. In 1990, the U.S. population was 250 million. But the available housing stock was far less than half that.
As the U.S. became more multiracial and multicultural through the 20th century and into the 21st, the ownership of America's housing stock remained consistently dominated by one racial group: White Americans.
As America entered the 21st century, the housing industry would take center stage in the worst financial disaster since the decade of America's Great Depression.
Here's a timeline of the U.S. financial meltdown 1992-2018 produced by the Council on Foreign Relations. It centers on the bursting of the housing bubble and provides key policy changes including:
Since the turn of the 21st century, U.S. housing inventory has risen from 116 million to 146 million.
Three-quarters of the total housing stock in the nation is still owned by White Americans. But America's housing landscape is in crisis. There just aren't enough houses being built to provide adequate shelter for all Americans, particularly nonwhite populations that are far less wealthy, have less job security, lower incomes and tend to be more transient due to a variety of circumstances beyond their control.
Meanwhile, 75 percent of the entire inventory of housing units in America is owned and/or controlled by a declining population.
In the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections, the Social Security area population (the relevant population for estimating Social Security payroll taxes and benefits) increases from 342?million people in 2024 to 383?million people in 2054.
The studies produced by Texas A&M concur with numerous other studies by the federal government and various research institutes. Texas A&M researchers declared in 2019 that the end to white domination and supremacy in America is in sight this century, as the White population is declining in an irreversible trend.
The fear of losing control of America's vast resources of wealth (lands, homes, businesses, intellectual property, et al) has been identified by researchers as a motivating factor fueling the rise of White hostility and desperate attempts to hold onto as much political power as possible.
There is a stark reality in America that demographic data reveals. White Americans are in decline. Their rates of death have outpaced their birth rates.
If you pay even cursory attention to media covering politics, you will hear about how the "American people" are concerned about the immigration "problem." The "American people" to which journalists are referring are primarily White Americans.
Immigration is fueling the growth of the nonwhite population in the U.S. and accelerating the inevitable prediction by data analysts of a soon-to-be minority majority population in America. But immigration comes in various forms. If we were talking about immigrants from Europe there would be little concern, if any. But the immigration into the U.S. is overwhelmingly from nonwhite nations, declare researchers at Texas A&M in their report.
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While White Americans fret over the future of the country, the condition of American democracy (and who will control it), the housing industry is facing its own reality: the population to which it catered for more than eight generations dating back to the Civil War, will not be the dominant majority population by mid-century. And yet, there is no other population with the dominance of homeownership as White America at this present time.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) appears to have read the writing on the wall. There are a lot of homes to be built and sold to the populations that are increasing in America and projected to continue throughout this century. Given the low levels of homeownership among Black, Hispanic and Asian populations, there is a lot of room for growth in the condition of homeownership among minority populations.
But the NAR has a long, long history (established in 1908) of denying access to homeownership to Black and other nonwhite populations. In 1968, the NAR was against the Fair Housing Act. This history can no longer be hidden. And the NAR is aware of it.
In 2020, the NAR issued a public apology for its co-conspiratorial role alongside the federal government and financial industry in harming generations of nonwhite populations through nationwide systemic racist policies and practices.
Of course, an apology is a good first step. Acknowledgement of the wrongdoing is essential. Demonstrating a contrite spirit can open doors to critical next steps:
I wrote an article in May 2024 for the real estate magazine Inman. I offered three specific solution-oriented ideas toward a path of reconciliation and redemption for the NAR and other co-conspirators that corrupted America's housing industry.
So, how can the housing crisis in America be resolved?
The numbers offer the path forward. The era of prioritizing and catering to White America alone, to the exclusion of nonwhite populations, is over. The nation is now more multiracial, multicultural and nonwhite. It is time for strategies that build a more equitable and Inclusive America.
The population of the K-12 public schools is a clear indicator of the trend. The population of White students are a minority. Out of the 54 million enrolled students in public schools in 2021 (latest data available in a 2023 Census report), only 48 percent were White. Yet, 80 percent of the teachers are White. That professional landscape will undergo a transformation as well.
The real estate industry is primarily a White-dominated industry. White realtors. White financiers. White investors. White policymakers. White homeowners.
But the population trend in America is following similar demographic shifts in schools, which is the early indicator of the national population trend. The landscape is changing. The doors of opportunity in real estate must be opened to accommodate that change.
White power brokers sitting in seats of power, wealth and influence must be open to collaborating with those who have previously been shut out. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve and the finance industry writ large, the appraisal industry, mortgage and insurance industries, local policymakers, economic planners, home builders and land developers ... and, of course realtors must all be willing to collectively engage with those organizations and institutions representing the populations that have long been harmed.
The economic ecosystem that has denied access to marginalized groups must now embrace them, invest in them, and uplift them in order for the ecosystem to thrive in the future. Because those oppressed and suppressed populations clearly represent the future of America.
The centering and prioritizing of nonwhite populations in new inclusive real estate strategies, education, investments and action plans that expand access to the homeownership landscape in America, will provide a critical lens that can empower the current crop of power brokers, investors, bankers and policymakers to see more clearly a future in which more people in America (more nonwhite populations) are safely and securely housed...and the industry thrives.
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