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Expanding Homeownership

LA Civil Rights has partnered with LA Partners in Homeownership, a 501(c)3 non-profit, to provide first time homebuyer seminars to underserved communities and Angelenos of color.

LA Partners is a group of real estate professionals working to expand home ownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income individuals and families as well as other underserved communities. Homeownership can be daunting, and many first-time buyers can miss out on government home buyer assistance programs.

On June 12, 2021, LA Civil Rights and LA Partners hosted their first homebuyers seminar, a lengthy and detailed explanation of home buying counseling, resources and government assistance programs for first time buyers. Watch the program here.

With LA Partners and others, LA Civil Rights will continue to provide avenues for owning and keeping a home in Los Angeles for communities of color, which have historically been excluded and victimized by the homeownership process. 

WATCH: Executive Director Capri Maddox shares her personal story on how homeownership changed her life:

WATCH: LA Civil Rights Homeownership Seminar Dina Andrews shares her story of how LA Civil Rights helped her become a homeowner:

Owning a home is one of the greatest tools to build intergenerational wealth. We know this because of the wealth denied African-American, Latinx and other communities in the U.S. during the 20th century.

Starting in the 1934 and continuing well into the 1970s, the United States and private lenders engaged in redlining, or the purposeful segregation of American cities and towns by race. When the federal government promised to insure American homes in order to encourage and subsidize home buying, it did so only in white neighborhoods, refusing to insure African-American, Latinx or other neighborhoods of color. At the same time, the Federal Housing Administration was subsidizing new home construction - in whites-only neighborhoods. This process, combined with racial covenants which barred individuals of color from buying homes in certain neighborhoods, effectively denied communities of color from participating in America's economic boom of the 1940s-1960s.

HOLC Map of Los Angeles redlining 1939

Pictured: A federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation Map showing redlining, 1939. The survey ranked neighborhoods with a grade rating, from A to D, and color-coded each grade.

The effect of this policy is devastating. Today in Los Angeles, White households have a median net worth of $355,000. In comparison, Mexicans and African Americans have a median wealth of $3,500 and $4,000, respectively. Learn more about the history of redlining here.

LA Partners was originally formed in 1997 an informal federation of housing counselors, mortgage and real estate professionals, public agency housing directors and non-profit organizations based in the Los Angeles who served low-income first-time home buyers. For a number of years LA Partners sponsored home buyer events to promote awareness and access to government home buying assistance programs.

In 2013 LA Partners was reconstituted and since then has sponsored high-quality home buyer education events at California State University Los Angeles.  LA Partners' supporters and collaborators include Freddie Mac, West Angeles Community Development Corporation, Korean Churches for Community Development, Springboard CDFI, credit.org, Independent Cities Finance Authority and Golden State Finance Authority.

To learn more about LA Partners in Homeownership, click here.