Greenlining: California Communities of Color Fall Further Behind in Mortgage Access

The Greenlining Institute report, Home Lending to Communities of Color in California 2020, is an analysis of federal home mortgage data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The report, released in February 2022 shows that Black, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander Californians continue to lag behind Whites in their ability to access home purchase loans, and the numbers are getting worse. The disparity is particularly stark for women of color, who make up 30% of California’s population but receive only 8% of home purchase mortgages from the top 15 lenders in the state.

Homeownership forms the bedrock of generational wealth building, yet it remains out of reach for communities of color in one of the most racially diverse states in our country. If communities of color are locked out of home lending, they can’t buy a home, and if they can’t buy a home, they can’t build generational wealth.