Barbara Lee Announces Launch of Minority Homeownership Initiative

(Oakland, CA) - Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and the Bay Area HomeBuyer Agency (BABHA) held a press conference today to announce the launch of a program designed to help more than 200 local minority families realize the dream of homeownership.

“We are working together to break down the barriers that prevent minority families from owning their own homes,” said Lee.
 
The With Ownership Wealth Program (WOW) will provide homebuyer assistance to over six hundred minority households in the Ninth Congressional District over the next two years, with the expectation that at least 200 will own their own homes in that period.  WOW provides participants with homebuyer education, counseling, and financial self sufficiency curriculums, and qualified buyers may receive as much as $100,000 in down payment assistance subsidies.

“As a teenage parent, I thought owning a home was out of reach.  Programs like WOW allow people like me to get their foot in the door who otherwise would not be able to purchase a home in the Bay Area because of price,” said Janet Adams, a single mother of two from Oakland who recently purchased a home through a WOW affiliated program.

The press conference featured Derek Williams, a violence prevention counselor and single father who recently purchased a home through a WOW affiliated program.  It was held in front of a house in Linden Row, a new development with a mix of market rate and affordable units built by Oakland Community Housing, Inc., a local non-profit developer.  The development is an example of the type of homes that WOW participants can have access to purchase.
 
The WOW program is an initiative of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation that was developed to help African Americans and other minorities develop intergenerational wealth by reducing the barriers they face to homeownership.

“This program is an important tool in helping us close the minority homeownership gap, which is a key step in breaking the cycle of disparities and building strong economic foundations for our communities,” said Lee, who was responsible for bringing the program to the East Bay and will sit on the advisory board that oversees its implementation.

California has the second lowest home ownership rate in the country, ten percent below the national average.  African Americans have a home ownership rate statewide of 39 percent and Latinos 43 percent, compared to 63 percent among Whites.  A report released by the Center for Responsible Lending in June found that African-Americans and Latinos are 30 percent more likely than whites to be victims of predatory lending.

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