This Homeownership Month, as we discuss “Homeownership Now and After COVID-19,” we will have an array of housing partners talk about the challenge of serving their communities and protecting homeownership while envisioning the future through these key principles. Before  the COVID-19 pandemic, our country faced an extended, widespread housing affordability crisis, which left millions of families burdened by heavy costs.  In the wake of disruptions caused by COVID-19, many households are unable to make rent or mortgage payments and are at risk of losing their homes.  Suddenly, 2020 has become a watershed moment for homeownership and for affordable housing practitioners. Our field’s response to this unprecedented economic crisis will be pivotal in shaping the future of low-income households across the country. We are poised to not only manage the COVID-19 pandemic but address the disparities and impacts to low-income households and people of color. Now is the time for decisive policy and programmatic interventions to transform homeownership and ensure access to low-income households. 

In our recent blog post for Fair Housing Month, we discussed the need to continue developing emergency responses to this crisis while setting the stage for recovery. At the same time, we must think about the ways that short-term solutions can become part of long-term strategies that address the roots of income and housing disparities. This month, we begin that work by discussing key principles that the housing field should apply to our homeownership strategy, moving forward:

• Ensure that underserved communities have access to housing resources and the tools to rebuild communities through homeownership.

We must engage with underserved community members, particularly residents of color, as principal stakeholders to fully understand the needs and strengths of the community. New systems must focus on a strengths-based approach to build capacity for homeownership among clients within low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities.

• Expand nonprofit/community partnerships to build scale resources for homeownership preservation and community development.

COVID-19 has demonstrated the inequities in our housing and many other systems within our communities. Resources, such as health care and essential businesses, often are not located close to home, especially for vulnerable families. That’s both a problem and a consequence of disinvestment in homeownership. Through collaborative partnerships, we can scale housing programs to support LMI households in a way that makes sense for them. We must transform the system that sees housing as a privilege rather than a right.

• Develop new policies and programs to facilitate LMI affordable housing and homeownership.

New models of homeownership have not taken hold, even when they have been successful. In light of COVID-19, it is time to revisit these models to expand homeownership for low- to moderate-income families. The Great Recession showed us that millions of homeowners will be lost if we do not implement decisive policy and program actions.  These include expanding shared equity housing, using shared appreciation lending models, promoting limited-equity cooperatives, developing property tax relief programs that require key resident protections, encouraging the development of local tax foreclosure prevention policies and repurposing mortgage interest deduction to assist LMI renters.