We sat down and chatted with Sally J. Scott, Program Director of UMBC’s Graduate Program in Community Leadership. We spoke about her recent contribution in a report she co-authored with Seema Iyer of the Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore titled Overcoming Barriers to Home Ownership in Baltimore City.
Summary of the Report
The report initially came out of a question that we were asked by the Abell Foundation, which was, “Could we help more people become homeowners in Baltimore if they had access to more flexible loans and better incentives, such as closing cost assistance?” And that seems like a straightforward question. But as we dug into it and we looked at the local data and the national data, we realized that those proposed solutions would not be enough. There are much deeper issues at work limiting people’s homeownership opportunities in Baltimore. And that’s particularly true in the black community.
We learned that decades of systemic racism, as well as the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, have created barriers to homeownership in the black community in Baltimore. To address those would require much more systemic and far-reaching solutions than simply better loans and better incentives.
We hope you enjoy this episode!
To learn more about UMBC's Graduate Program in Community Leadership, visit:
https://professionalprograms.umbc.edu/community-leadership/
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