Report Publish Date: August 31, 2023
This journal article is a case study of Florida’s State Housing Initiatives Partnership, or SHIP, which provides funds for local housing programs that build new homes or rehabilitate existing ones and support homeownership and home rehabilitation for low- and moderate-income households.
Although SHIP does not explicitly aim to promote racial and ethnic integration and resource distribution to racial and ethnic groups that face housing discrimination, the program does often support Black and Hispanic people and majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
Unfair lending practices have led to disparities in homeownership for racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States and created segregated neighborhoods. The authors wanted to know whether a housing initiative like SHIP, which does not explicitly aim to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in housing and homeownership, could have that effect anyway.
The authors compared SHIP funding to private mortgage funding, which has tended to be lower among Black and Hispanic households and neighborhoods compared to White households and neighborhoods. They used Census tracts as a proxy for neighborhoods and examined SHIP activities between 2016 and 2018. To look at where private mortgages flowed, they used Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. To measure the socioeconomics and demographics of each Census tract, they used American Community Survey data.
“This study provides unique evidence evaluating the argument that decentralized and localized housing programs can contribute to the promotion of racially equitable access to mortgage capital for underserved communities.”
—Seungbeom Kang and Jooyoung Kim, Yonsei University; Anne Ray, Maria Watson, and Diep Nguyen, University of Florida; Ashon Nesbitt, Aida Andujar, and Blaise Denton, Florida Housing Coalition
This study supports the idea that housing programs run at the local level can promote access to mortgage funds for groups and neighborhoods that have historically been discriminated against, even if the programs don’t have racial equity as an explicit goal.
Housing credit inflows are a substantial contributor to the economic opportunities and vitality of a community. However, these opportunities have not been dispersed equitably across diverse subpopulations and neighborhoods. Although various public and private initiatives have been launched to address inequitable access to mortgage capital, the role of localized and decentralized housing programs in achieving racially equitable outcomes remains understudied.
As a case study, this research examines whether a decentralized and localized housing policy without explicit regulations for resource distribution across racial and ethnic groups promotes racial and neighborhood equity, focusing on its role in serving racial minority households and neighborhoods underserved by private mortgage markets. By incorporating various statistical methods, this study provides evidence that controlling for other factors, the program disproportionately supports racial minority households and neighborhoods that are underserved by private mortgage capital, although this positive role can vary across localities.
Housing Studies, 39(12), 3189–3216. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2023.2248920
This study and report was conducted and created by the following:
