The Housing Crisis Remains, Fix It...
There are Regional and National residual effects today that impact African Americans from the 2008 mortgage crisis. An issue of public policy. We need public pressure so that locally, government can do something about the fact that Black home ownership has fallen to 42%; 29% less than those of similar United States citizenship like the European descent. This is an early very conservative data estimate that extends and applies to homeowners who are Americans of the African descent in Chicago and across the United States. Consequently they have loss over half of their wealth due to the loss of their homes: ” and to circumstances beyond their control as Mortgagor’s.”
There were very few forbearance agreements or mortgage modifications provided as relief particularly to Black homeowners. To the best of my knowledge and belief, very few of the Mortgagee perpetrators were punished. There were Mortgagees and Banks who were found guilty of poor single-family loan servicing practices and some even fraudulent loan servicing practices. Some, I’m told, made civil agreements with the government and paid civil fines to the United States Treasury without any restitution to the homeowners who fell victim to the ploy. This problem was not totally the fault of former President Barack Obama. The policy decisions as to how and under what circumstances government housing policy oversight mechanisms would stop the recession were developed, legislated, regulated, issued and implemented across many different areas of government and the private sector by Congress. If he had done nothing, the entire economy would have crashed. It was a tough choice. But the negative high impact of implementation on Black homeowners in Chicago and across the United States remains real.