D.C. Mayor’s Latest Goal: 20,000 New Black Homeowners by 2030

Over the summer, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser convened a group of local advocates and city officials and tasked them with an ambitious directive: to come up with suggestions to increase the number of Black residents who own houses in the District, which has experienced a net loss of Black homeowners in the past decade.

On Monday, the Black Homeownership Strike Force helped Bowser’s administration set a new long-term goal to create 20,000 new Black homeowners in the District by 2030. Members of the strike force said that goal, and the 10 recommendations they put forth to help the city reach it, will help the city overcome decades of historical, discriminatory housing policies once common throughout the United States that continue to fuel inequitable homeownership rates today.

About 34 percent of Black D.C. residents own their homes — a decrease from 46 percent in 2005, according to American Community Survey data cited in the report. Meanwhile, White homeownership in the city increased from 47 percent to 49 percent between 1990 and 2019.

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The percentage of city residents who are Black has declined to less than 50 percent in the past decade, falling from about 70 percent in 1970, according to the report. Data from the American Community Survey cited in the report estimates a net loss of 5,000 Black homeowners from 2010 to 2020.

To remedy these trends, strike force members recommended that Bowser boost resources to assist residents in transferring homes to their children and heirs; provide technical support to Black homeowners who need to rehabilitate their homes; create a program specifically for Black homeowners at risk of foreclosure; and find ways to accelerate zoning and permitting for affordable housing projects.

Another recommendation called on the city to use $10 million that Bowser budgeted for the strike force to create a public-private fund that would offer units to Black home buyers at various affordability levels.

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Their ideas, she says, probably will build upon some of the city’s other programs to help residents stay in the city — most notably the Home Purchase Assistance Program, which expanded on Oct. 1 to offer first-time home buyers a benefit of up to $202,000, up from $80,000. {snip}

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