Title
Authorizing the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development, and the Homeless to hold hearings examining the race gap in home appraisals and its impact on homeownership and wealth accumulation in Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Racial bias in the appraisal industry - an industry that is dominated by white people - is an understudied contributor to historical and ongoing segregation and wealth disparities in Philadelphia and across the United States; and
WHEREAS, President Biden's recently released Memorandum on Redressing Our Nation's and the Federal Government's History of Discriminatory Housing Practices and Policies addresses the subject, stating: "During the 20th century, Federal, State, and local governments systematically implemented racially discriminatory housing policies that contributed to segregated neighborhoods and inhibited equal opportunity and the chance to build wealth for Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Native American families, and other underserved communities. Ongoing legacies of residential segregation and discrimination remain ever-present in our society. These include a racial gap in homeownership; a persistent undervaluation of properties owned by families of color..."; and
WHEREAS, President Biden's statement notes the role of appraisals in undervaluing properties owned by non-white families, which directly contributes to dramatic wealth disparities in America. Black and Latino families have approximately one-tenth the wealth of white families and much of this gap is the result of wide racial disparities in the homeownership rate and disparities in the equity white and non-white families have in their homes; and
WHEREAS, In 2019, 73 percent of white families owned their homes compared to 42 percent of Black and 47 percent of Latino families. But this is not a problem that just affects individual families. Entire neighborhoods that are predominantly non-white often are subject to undervalued appraisals, a...
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