July 18, 2019

Black homeownership rates have dropped to an all-time low of 8.6 percentage points since peaking in 2004, census data show. Meanwhile, Hispanic homeownership rates experienced the most growth of all ethnic groups since 2015. “We can see that discrimination is still there, although it has changed its form,” said Michela Zonta, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress.

A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia finds that though gentrifying neighborhoods experience greater displacement, residents do not move to higher-poverty neighborhoods or areas that are farther from the central business district or pay more in rent. The study included central city neighborhoods in the largest 100 US metropolitan areas and used data from the 2000 Census and the 2010–14 American Community Surveys.

San Francisco will open a parking lot in which people experiencing homelessness and living out of their vehicles can park overnight and access showers, bathrooms, and services to help them find housing. People are allowed to stay for 90 days at a time. This decision comes at a time when the city’s homeless population is up 30 percent from 2017, and a recent survey showed that 35 percent of unsheltered people experiencing homelessness lived in vehicles.

Americans are willing to take second jobs, reduce their expenses, consider living in less costly areas, and make other sacrifices in order to own a home, finds a new Wells Fargo survey. Nearly three-quarters of Americans said they would be willing to give something up—such as dining out—to save for a down payment. “The majority of Americans see homeownership as an investment in their future and as a key piece in achieving goals like financial health and security,” said Michael DeVito, head of Wells Fargo Home Lending. But down payments pose the biggest challenge to this goal.

Roughly 20 percent of Washington, DC, residents of Wards 7 and 8 worry they will have to move in the next three years because their homes will become unaffordable, finds a new survey from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The report found also found that Wards 7 and 8 had the highest levels of residential instability, which the authors say is “associated with increased stress and health problems, poorer educational outcomes, decreased community efficacy, and other critical problems for households and communities alike.”