The American dream just got a little closer to reality for black families thanks to Wells Fargo, HousingWire reports.
According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2016, 41.7 percent of black households owned a home. With Census Bureau data showing a total of 16.7 million black households in 2016, this means 7.8 million black households in America own a home.
Wells Fargo has pledged to get that number up.
The plan is to lend $60 billion to qualified African-American consumers for home purchases by the year 2027. The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (composed of black rel estate professionals) applauds Wells Fargo's $60 billion loan commitment especially since it is "the first financial institution to acknowledge publicly Black Americans' wealth-building potential" according to Ron Cooper, President of National Association of Real Estate Brokers. The NAREB has also set a homeownership goal and both the NAACP and the National Urban League are working alongside them in this latest endeavor. Their plan is to close the ever-widening wealth gap through a '2 Million New Black Homeowners in 5 Years' program.
Back in 2015, Wells Fargo made a $60 million commitment to help increase Hispanic homeownership over the next 10 years. Raphael Bostic, a professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at USC sees it happening faster than that. “The Census Bureau has a projection that America will be 100 million people more in the next 45 years,” said Bostic. “And if you break down where the growth is coming, it’s coming with African American families, it’s coming with Asian families, and it’s coming with Latino families. What we will have at the end of that period is the most diverse country that we’ve ever seen. It really won’t make sense to talk about minorities since there will be pluralities of everyone.”
To gain a better trust in the community, Wells Fargo also plans to support their effort with $15 million to support a variety of initiatives that promote financial education and counseling as well as increase diversity within their sale team.
