Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress finds the following: As the Nation continues to feel the devastating economic impacts of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), many urban and rural communities are still suffering from the effects of underwater mortgages, vacancy, abandoned properties, blight, aging housing stock, properties with deferred maintenance and harmful materials such as lead, asbestos, and mold, unemployment, and population loss. While some cities and counties struggle with disinvestment and population loss, there are also pockets of economic distress in otherwise prosperous, growing areas.

Investments targeted to these communities left behind will be critical to ensure equitable economic recovery, job creation, and housing and neighborhood infrastructure revitalization. The need to revitalize neighborhoods is greater than what can be supported with existing local tax bases. Communities continue to suffer from the impact of governmental policies and private sector practices that forbade or discouraged mortgage lending in neighborhoods having significant minority populations.

Many State and local governments, land banks, and nonprofit organizations across the United States have responded to the housing crisis by creating cost-effective strategies to revitalize neighborhoods. 2016 data from the United States Census Bureau shows that non-Hispanic, White households have an average net worth of $143,600, while Black households have an average net worth of $12,920, and Hispanic households have an average net worth of $21,420. Housing equity is a significant portion of Black and Hispanic households’ net worth, making up nearly 57 percent of Black households’ net worth, 66.5 percent of Hispanic households’ net worth, and 40.8 percent of White households’ net worth, according to the Urban Institute’s calculations from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances.

The 2008 Great Recession and the COVID-19 Recession have exacerbated the racial wealth gap. Funding innovative local neighborhood strategies will allow the United States to close the racial wealth gap, ensure equitable access to housing and economic mobility, and counter the lasting legacy of redlining policies. Despite the strong requirement to affirmatively furthering fair housing under the Fair Housing Act, the lack of accountability measures implemented by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to ensure equitable use of housing and community development dollars in Federal programs has allowed for the perpetuation of the legacy of redlining and neighborhood disinvestment.

It is imperative that the Federal Government make funding available for the best local strategies to increase homeownership and preserve home equity in impacted areas, access to safe and affordable rental housing, economic growth, job creation, and to build on local assets to improve communities in ways that affirmatively further fair housing.