Downpayment Assistance: The Myth and Mystery
Welcome back!
It’s Khadeen Grant here, popping in to refill our cup of tea. If you didn’t catch the first blog, you can catch up here, but remember to return to this one.
On brand, I am starting with a bit of shade and controversy. So, can you answer the following questions: Why don’t more people of color own homes? Do they not know about all of the government programs that help them? Or are they lazy and want government assistance for the rest of their lives
We may not want to admit this, but most of us have heard some variation of the questions above, and if we are honest, we may have been the ones asking. Don’t worry- this is a safe place where we can openly confess that some of us ‘askers’ are people of color.
I personally think it’s fair to ask questions we don’t have answers to. Wisdom would tell us that it is through questions that we find the solutions to change things, and I hope our discernment would also tell us we don’t need to ask racist or prejudiced questions, and if we do, we should address that.
So, coming back to our questions above: why don’t more lower and middle-income people own homes in the District, and why did an estimated 20,000 Black people migrate to greener pastures between 2000-2013 and continue to do so? It doesn’t make sense but this is what happens when housing costs become unattainable and there’s tediously protracted negligence of the community’s specific needs.
For this month’s blog, we’ll explore Down Payment Assistance (DPA), specifically in the District, as another reason Black people are leaving the City or why more lower to middle-income people aren’t using DPA. I did a bit of digging and discovered that a lot of money is available in the City for down payment assistance (although, the City ran low on funding in the summer). It is exciting! Actually, as a housing advocate, I was proud and excited, but…
- Access to DPA is still a problem. Numerous websites list DPA programs, including DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and DC Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA), including multiple community-based organizations (CBOs). The Mayor’s team has done a great job discussing these programs in press conferences but if we ask people to name all available programs, they may be able to name HPAP alone. Many people are still unaware that other programs exist or if and how they link to HPAP. We can fix this by discussing the programs, locating them on the same website, preferably with a bold heading like “ALL DPA Programs in D.C. Here” and explaining how they work with each other.
- Adjacent programs like construction loans and tax abatements are found on different websites. You need to dig through the Google search engine to find them. Even then, you may only find them if you already know they exist. To address this, all DPA programs, tax abatement, construction/ rehab loans, and any funding that makes homeownership less burdensome/ expensive should be on the same website.
I would guess that if we surveyed the people currently using these programs to buy homes, most would be college-educated and not people of color. That’s ok. We want an inclusive City. However, those people are predisposed to finding obscure information on the internet and having networks that can fill any information gaps.
What about the people who don’t fit that profile? The issues highlighted here and even some of the questions posed above highlight the pervasive narrative of oppression that has historically prevented them from benefiting from these programs. We can fix this. We can change the narrative. We can make sure information about DPA is easy to find and understand.
This is why Medici Road is set to launch an all-inclusive repository of DPA programs in the City. We believe such simple solutions promote dignity, inclusion, and tell people, “We want you to live here.”
So, watch this space in January 2024!
