Home ownership is the single biggest transfer of wealth between generations that Americans have. Therefore, anything that prevents home ownership prevents the ability to pass wealth on to your children. Even a small inheritance divided between 4 siblings can become the down payment for the homes of the subsequent generation. After this cycle continues for 4 or 5 generations, the cumulative wealth of that one family, all the homes that they have purchased and sold can be massive.
Now let’s imagine a family that has never owned a home. For many families, there are generations of renters who pay someone else’s mortgages because they never had enough for that down payment. No rich uncle, no sale of gramma’s house, no high paying job, no way to come up with that 5-20% down-payment. This is a kind of wealth transfer as well, from renters to owners. So what does this have to do with equity? Well, other than that home ownership is often referred to as equity, some people might simply think that renters and owners are part of life. Some people rent and other people own. It is not that simple.
What if we considered that home ownership was shaped by policies that prevented some people from buying. Lending policies, insurance policies and even race based color codes were in place for decades and decades. This drawing of red lines around neighborhoods was formalized in 1934 and officially outlawed in 1970. And if you or your parents were born in 1970s or earlier, redlining conferred an advantage (privilege) or disadvantage over where your parents were able to live, work, and raise you. Think for a moment what year you and people in your family were born. The impact of redlining lives today.
However all manner of similar practices persist. Studies have shown that redlining has had an enduring negative economic and social impact on Black and Latino families. That is the definition of inequity. When resources like loans, insurance policies, jobs, schools, businesses, parks, houses or health care are made more difficult for certain groups, this is inequitable. The example of redlining is just one such system. In every place in America, there are dozens of such systems exerting their enduring legacy on certain lives more than others. That’s inequitable.
Over generations the cumulative impact of inequity can be seen everywhere. Disinvested neighborhoods had a lower tax base, which meant lower revenue for schools and infrastructure thus compounding further barriers to creating thriving places to live, work, play and learn. This all happens WITHOUT any direct personally mediated negative thoughts or actions from one group to another. It is literally built into the systems of buying and selling homes, loaning money, insuring property, or starting a business.
In the next blog entries, I will return to the 5 layers of Impact and 4 keys to Engagement to unpack equity in our everyday lives.
For Further Reading:
What the Heck Does “Equity” Mean? by Kris Putnam-Walkerly & Elizabeth Russell in Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.
Levels of Racism: A Theoretical Framework and a Gardner’s Tale by Camara Phyllis Jones.
Redlining https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=4/36.71/-96.93&opacity=0.8