Well, hello again!
It is never too late to say “Happy February!”
We are celebrating Black History Month, with the re-release of Medici Road’s Mortgage Calculator. This special time of year elicits fond memories of years ago when I got my first adult job in the City and discovered ‘Sankofa’. The name of a shop on Georgia Avenue near Howard University, Sankofa, is a Ghanaian word (from the Twi dialect) now symbolic of pan-African pride and encouragement to reclaim anything at risk of getting left behind. Reclamation can mean so many things.
If you were here for Lucy’s story from last month, then you understand when I say she has a lot to reclaim. With the right tools, she can reclaim her dream of homeownership. With the right policies, she can use her housing voucher. With more sensitivity in how professionals in the space approach the work, we can steward the community towards homeownership and Lucy can feel supported in her journey. If you were here before Lucy, you also remember Lauren (formerly referred to as Breona), a persona we developed from data collected on Deanwood residents. Like Lucy, Lauren had dreams of homeownership in the City but was unlikely to reach that dream until her mid to late 30s due to similar systemic issues.
This past year, Medici Road has been reclaiming space and developing products that we believe advance equity and access to homeownership for people of color. Our team embarked on a year-long journey to explore and build what it would take to close the homeownership gap. What we found wasn’t surprising- people of color needed more than a few policies or a new mortgage calculator to buy houses. They required a whole-person approach, not because people of color are deficient but because they have been denied access to those things for so long. We needed to think about well-being and its connection to any other products we develop.
So, it was unsurprising that when we revisited the Medici Road Mortgage Calculator, a tool we developed years ago, we knew that as a standalone, it wouldn’t be enough to address the alarming decrease in Black Homeownership in the City.
Now, the new and improved Toolkit includes:
- A call to action advocating for subsidizing Homeownership through Housing Choice Vouchers
- A revamped Mortgage Calculator
- A Homeownership Fact Sheet (to be unveiled soon)
- A Wealth and Well-being Framework that provides a holistic connection between how wellness and wealth-building must be cultivated for people of color to achieve equity.
I invite all DC residents to check out the Medici Road Mortgage calculator. It is an excellent tool for anyone who has ever dreamt about buying a house. It gives a pretty good idea of how much downpayment City programs may provide based on income and employment, and the best part is that anyone can use it in the privacy of their home. Check it out now here.
