SB American news week Ending 2/16

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THE SAN BERNARDINO

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AMERICAN

“A Man In Debt is So Far A Slave” -R.W. Emerson

NEWSPAPER A Community Newspaper Serving San Bernardino, Riverside & Los Angeles Counties

February 10, 2022 Thursday Edition

Volume 52 No. 43 Mailing: P.O. Box 837, Victorville, CA 92393

Office: (909) 889-7677

Email: Mary @Sb-American.com

Website: www.SB-American.com

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance those of whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)

FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Black America deserves its fair share of the American Dream Affordable rentals shrinking, growing mortgage denials block homeownership

By Charlene Crowell NNPA Newswire Columnist Regardless of locale, profession, or income, every family needs and deserves a home. But for many – especially Black Americans and other people of color — finding and maintaining affordable housing is increasingly difficult. New research documents not only escalating rental costs, but how Black American efforts to buy affordable homes are blocked by high denial rates nearly double that of white consumers. While it is encouraging that this new research documents real-life bargains and locales to access the American Dream of homeownership, mortgage lenders must clearly account for their reasons to deny Black Americans owning their own piece of America. The longstanding racial homeownership gap is today only 43% for Black households – 30% less that of white households at 3%. Further, as long as Blacks are forced to struggle with rising rental costs, these same families are denied the housing cost containment of a fixed-rate mortgage, as well as family stability, and the wealth-building that accrues to homeowners. Despite unprecedented federal housing assistance during the pandemic, a report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) finds stark racial and income divides in its analysis of the nation’s rental market. Nearly a quarter of Black renters were behind on rent in the third quarter of 2021, as well as 19% of Hispanic renters. By contrast, the share of white renters in arrears was half that: 9%. “This disparity reflects longterm discrimination in labor

As long as mortgage application denial rates disproportionately impact Blacks, Black homeownership will continue to lag behind the rest of the nation. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA)

markets that has consigned many households of color to low-wage jobs in the service industry,” says Chris Herbert, Managing Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS). “And this sector suffered the most drastic employment cuts over the past two years, which has only compounded existing inequalities.” The term, ‘rental affordability’ is a ratio of monthly housing costs as a percentage of household

income. Researchers, lawmakers and other housing stakeholder groups, consider affordable rent to cost no more than 30%. For homeowners, this ratio must also take factors other than the mortgage payment into consideration. Property taxes, homeowner’s insurance and the required private mortgage insurance for small down payment home purchases, must also be included in the calculation.

But with low rental vacancy rates in most metro areas, rental increases are widespread, and ‘affordable’ rentals are in short supply. The number of units renting for less than $600 fell by 3.9 million between 2011 and 2019, the JCHS report found. Additionally, 17.6 million rentals—40 percent of the nation’s supply—are located in areas with at least moderate risk from threats caused by climate change. And

Black Women’s Tireless But Practical Pursuit of Reparations Ashley D. Farmer

Callie House (Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, via Wikimedia Commons); Audley Moore (photo by Judith Sedwick, Schlesinger Library, via Wikimedia Commons) In a moment when lawmakers are actively outlawing Black history in schools, it is important to think about how the past can help us make sense of the present and chart a course for a better

future. Examining reparations—a concept that asks us to look at the past wrongs, learn from them, and make amends for their current manifestations—is especially instructive. In the United States,

Black women have created, led, and sustained the reparations movement for more than a hundred years. Their efforts laid the groundwork for the increasing number of reparations bills, programs, and restitution funds of today. Callie House and Audley Moore are considered the mothers of the movement. House, a former slave-turned-washerwoman in Rutherford County, Tennessee, was privy to debates over the importance of Black labor during and after the Civil War. In 1891, when an agent came to nearby Nashville selling a pamphlet called “Freedmen’s Pension Bill: A Plea for American Freedman,” House found a political movement she could get behind. She helped

create the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1898 to advocate for payment to former slaves. As the assistant secretary of the organization, House traveled around the country to garner support for pensions. She was responsible for growing the Association’s membership by the tens of thousands and used her platform to encourage former slaves to petition the government for support, engage lobbyists for congressional pension legislation, and file lawsuits on behalf of ex-slaves for back pay. As an Association leader, House argued that the federal government owed slaves monetary support based on continued on page 2

the 7.2 million renter households headed by a person age 65 and over is expected to continue rising over the next two decades. “Given that people of color are more likely to have lower incomes and to rent rather than own their homes, the geographic concentration of rental housing helps to perpetuate patterns of racial and socioeconomic segregation,” noted Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a JCHS

Research Associate and lead author of the new report. A transition to homeownership can be key to containing family housing costs. Other recent research documents how affordable homeownership is still possible for moderate-income families. In its 2022 Rental Affordability Report, ATTOM, curator of a national property database, found that paying a monthly mortgage on a median-priced home is more affordable than the average rent on a three-bedroom property in 666, or 58 percent, of the 1,154 U.S. counties analyzed for the report. “[H]ome ownership still remains the more affordable option for average workers in a majority of the country because it still takes up a smaller portion of their pay,” said Todd Teta chief product officer with ATTOM. “For now, though, rising wages and interest rates around 3 percent are enough to offset recent price runups and keep ownership on the plus side of the affordability ledger compared to renting.” In general, according to ATTOM, homeownership is the most affordable in the Midwest and in the South. Moreover, many of these areas are already home to large numbers of Blacks and other people of color. T he mo s t a f fo r d a ble homeownership among counties with a population of at least 1 million are Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), PA; Bexar County (San Antonio), TX; Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), OH; Harris County (Houston), TX; continued on page 3

MISSION STATEMENT Clifton Harris /Editor in Chief Investigative Reporter sbamericannews@gmail.com Mary Martin-Harris / Editor Legal /Display Advertising (909) 889-7677 Clifton B. Harris / Audio Engineering Editor Digital Online Banner Advertising (909) 889-7677 The San Bernardino American News was established May 6, 1969. A legally adjudicated newspaper of general circulation on September 30, 1971, case number 15313 by the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. The San Bernardino AMERICAN News subscription rate is $59.00 per year. The San Bernardino AMERICAN News is committed to serving its readers by presenting news unbiased and objective, trusting in the mature judgment of the readers and, in so doing, strive to achieve a united community. News releases appearing in the San Bernardino AMERICAN News do not necessarily express the policy nor the opinion of the publishers. The San Bernardino AMERICAN News reserves the right to edit or rewrite all news releases.


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