EthnicMajority

(Planetizen) Foreclosures continue to decimate communities around the nation, with black neighborhoods being the hardest hit. However, it is investors, not homeowners, who account for the adverse impact on the nation's black communities, write John Gilderbloom and Gregory Squires.

Foreclosures continue to decimate communities around the nation, with black neighborhoods being the hardest hit. Some pundits and politicians point to federal policies that encouraged homeownership in low- and moderate-income communities, coupled with reckless behavior on the part of greedy homeowners, as the crux of the problem. As Fox News reporter Neil Cavuto observed "loaning to minorities and risky borrowers is a disaster." But our recent research demonstrates that it is investors, not homeowners, who account for the adverse impact on our nation's black communities.

Full story…

(St. Louis American) Recently the Pew Research Center released an alarming report highlighting the fact that white Americans now have 20 times more wealth than African Americans and 18 times more wealth than Hispanic Americans. While this came as a shock to some, it is par for the course for others.

Historically, whites have always earned and accumulated more wealth than minorities in American society. Despite this, the white-black wealth gap is the widest it has been since the census began tracking the disparity in 1984, when the ratio was roughly 12 to 1.

The collapse of the housing market bubble coupled with the recession caused median wealth to fall by 53 percent for African-American households, 66 percent for Hispanics and 16 percent for whites. One of the main reasons for such a major decline in minority wealth is due to the fact that African Americans and Hispanic Americans tend to invest heavily in their homes without investing in other asset building products such as stocks, bonds and savings accounts.

Full story…

(All Headline News) The oldest African American church in DeKalb County no longer has a place to worship.

Flat Rock Community Church was established 150 years ago. Now, one of the members said it is in financial limbo.

In November, the church separated from the United Methodist denomination in a disagreement over property, reports stated. In December, membership thinned out, and the church could no longer afford the $6,500 mortgage, resulting in the building going into foreclosure.

According to senior pastor Binita Miles, members are discouraged they have to deal with political and financial issues within the church, and not religious concerns.

For the past month, the church has been meeting at the Flat Rock archive building, and starting in January they will move to Flat Rock Elementary School.

(San Francisco Chronicle) A review of the damage wreaked on California communities by the housing bust shows that Latino households suffered nearly 50 percent of the foreclosures and that loan defaults are concentrated in the state’s Central Valley.

That area, which includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, features six of the top 10 California metro areas for foreclosure concentrations, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, which released a comprehensive report Tuesday.

No California communities have experienced a higher percentage of defaults than Modesto, Merced and Stockton – each of which had a foreclosure percentage of around 16 percent between late 2006 and 2009, the study found.

Full story…

(CNN Money) The mortgage meltdown is hitting the African-American and Latino communities harder than whites, a new study has found.

Of borrowers who took out mortgages between 2005 and 2008, some 8% of both African-American and Latino borrowers have lost their homes to foreclosure, compared to 4.5% of non-Hispanic whites, according to a study by the Center for Responsible Lending, released Friday.

The racial and ethnic disparities continued even after controlling for income differences. The center’s research shows that African-American and Latino borrowers were about 30% more likely to get higher-rate subprime loans than white borrowers with similiar risk characteristics.

Of the total pool of homeowners, 17% of Latinos have lost their homes to foreclosure or are at imminent risk of losing their homes, while 11% of African-Americans are in that position. By comparison, 7% of non-Hispanic whites have lost their homes or are about to.

Full story…