G. Aron Ramirez

This project uses Latine homeownership as a case study of the fundamental change in the link between housing and inequality in the late twentieth century. Two milestones bookend the story. In 1970, the United States census bureau enumerated the nation’s “Spanish-speaking” minority for the first time. The census started what became a cottage industry of federal reports and investigations which all reached the same conclusions: dire poverty and poor housing conditions trapped the nation’s Latines. In 2000, though, the Clinton administration announced that its National Homeownership Strategy had produced the highest all-time rate of homeownership for the nation in general and for Latines in particular. These two milestones bely a more complicated story of public-private partnerships; the crumbling welfare state; and the tension between profit, risk, and social responsibility. This project describes how the federal government achieved the all-time high not by making Latine homeownership more affordable but simply making credit more accessible—setting the stage for the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.