•HRES 1025 IH 
Whereas for over 80 years it has been the policy of the 
United States to promote the general welfare of the Na-
tion by employing its funds and credit to assist States 
and localities to remedy unsafe housing conditions and 
the acute shortage of decent and safe dwellings for low 
income families under the United States Housing Act of 
1937; 
Whereas the House of Representatives, which has over a pe-
riod of many years endeavored to address housing and 
homeownership, and has had some success in doing so 
through related appropriations and authorizing legisla-
tion, has committed itself to meeting the affordable hous-
ing and community development needs of the country; 
Whereas the disparate impact standard under the Fair Hous-
ing Act is a longstanding protection that allows people to 
challenge policies that might seem neutral on their face 
but result in discriminatory outcomes; 
Whereas a government-sponsored corporation, the Home-
owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), established in 1933, 
implemented a system of redlining for years that rated 
neighborhoods based on a number of factors, including 
race; 
Whereas, in 1911, a St. Louis, Missouri, neighborhood en-
acted a racially restrictive covenant designed to prevent 
African Americans and Asian Americans from living in 
the area and in 1945 the Shelleys, an African-American 
family, moved into the neighborhood prompting Louis 
Kraemer to sue to enforce the covenant and prevent them 
from moving into their house, resulting in a Supreme 
Court decision that although restrictive covenants did not 
fall under constitutional protection, State enforcement of 
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•HRES 1025 IH 
such covenants violates the Equal Protection Clause of 
the Fourteenth Amendment; 
Whereas the National Association of Real Estate Boards, 
which became the National Association of Realtors, had 
harmful racial discrimination as part of its ethics code; 
Whereas prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 
1968, Federal, State, and local governments actively and 
explicitly enforced policies that discriminated against ra-
cial minorities seeking homeownership opportunities, 
making it harder for them to purchase homes in certain 
neighborhoods or to obtain financing on fair terms, and 
during much of the 20th century, State and local govern-
ments promoted segregation in neighborhoods across the 
Nation by actively enforcing racially restrictive covenants, 
which were legally enforceable provisions in property 
deeds that prohibited racial minorities from purchasing 
homes in White residential neighborhoods; 
Whereas during the height of the foreclosure crisis, about a 
quarter of African-American and Latino homeowners had 
lost their homes to foreclosure or were seriously delin-
quent, compared to just under 12 percent for White 
homeowners and just under 14 percent for Asian-Amer-
ican homeowners, and by 2011, 25 percent of Black 
homeowners and 28 percent of Hispanic homeowners had 
underwater mortgages, a home purchase loan with a 
higher outstanding principal obligation than the fair-mar-
ket value of the home, compared to just 15 percent of 
White homeowners; 
Whereas a National Fair Housing Alliance report in Decem-
ber 2019 found an 87-percent rate of racial steering, per-
verse redlining, and other harrowing forms of discrimina-
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•HRES 1025 IH 
tion for families seeking to purchase homes in 12 cities 
across the United States; 
Whereas 2018 Census Bureau data found the homeownership 
rate was 73 percent for non-Hispanic White households, 
42 percent for African-American households, 47 percent 
for Hispanic or Latinx households, and 58 percent for 
Asian or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander households, 
and in the past 15 years, Black homeownership has seen 
the most dramatic drop of any racial or ethnic group and 
it is now as low as it was when discrimination was legal, 
contributing to the racial wealth gap; 
Whereas a 2016 DEMOS study found that eliminating dis-
parities in homeownership rates and returns would sub-
stantially reduce the racial wealth gap; 
Whereas the 2016 DEMOS study found that Black and 
Latino homeowners saw less return in wealth on their in-
vestment in homeownership, finding that for every $1 in 
wealth that accrues to median Black households as a re-
sult of homeownership, median White households accrue 
$1.34, while for every $1 in wealth that accrues to me-
dian Latino households as a result of homeownership, 
median White households accrue $1.54; 
Whereas the Center for Responsible Lending testified in May 
2019 to the Subcommittee on Housing, Community De-
velopment and Insurance of the Financial Services Com-
mittee of the House of Representatives that data from 
the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act continues to dem-
onstrate low levels of conventional mortgage loans to Af-
rican-American and Latino families and, further, the 
Center for Investigative Reporting Reveal report analyzed 
31 million mortgage records and found that, in 61 metro-
politan areas in the United States, African Americans 
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•HRES 1025 IH 
and Latinos are more likely to be turned down for a con-
ventional mortgage application than similarly situated 
White borrowers, among other forms of invidious dis-
crimination; and 
Whereas equal access to homeownership opportunities en-
hances social and economic diversity, promotes inclusion, 
and reaffirms equality and is consistent with principles of 
capitalism: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives supports 
the designation of ‘‘National Homeownership Month’’ and 
honors the importance of the sacrosanct and uniquely 
American idea of homeownership. 
Æ 
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