(New York) A black or Hispanic resident of New York State, which includes the eponymous megacity, is half as likely as a white resident to own their home due to racial discrimination in obtaining a loan real estate, New York justice denounced on Tuesday.
In the rather rural state of New York – 20 million inhabitants including 8.5 million in New York City in the far south – “white households are 25% more likely to own their homes than white households Asians and more than twice as likely as black or Hispanic households,” said state Attorney General Letitia James, the equivalent of a regional Minister of Justice, in a press release.
Based on a vast report prepared by his services, Mme James, an elected representative of the Democratic Party and African-American magistrate, deplores that “unequal access to affordable credit remains systematic in the state” of New York, the fourth largest in the United States and which also includes the regional capital Albany and the northern city of Buffalo on the Canadian border.
For the head of New York justice, racial “discrimination” in obtaining a mortgage loan “feeds what remains of segregation, which leads to disparities between owners and widens the gap in wealth inequality based on the race “.
Letitia James’ services also calculated that the long-term cost of a mortgage for a black or Hispanic New Yorker is much higher than for a white resident of New York.
African-American or Latino people “are more likely to be charged higher interest rates on their loans […] and less chance of seeing their loans refinanced at a more advantageous rate.”
This “adds a total of more than $200 million in interest and costs over the course of black and Hispanic borrowers’ loan payments,” compared to white people.
New York City is a unique multicultural mosaic, but socio-economic inequalities are abysmal and the cost of housing is one of the highest in the world. Mme James committed in her press release to “fighting housing discrimination in all its forms” in particular by legally encouraging banks and associations to support first-time home buyers.