This election year, housing has emerged as one of the top five concerns for Latino voters for the first time ever. With mortgage rates and housing prices on the rise, the dream of owning a home has become more elusive. Many Latinos and Latinas face barriers beyond finances, starting with the difficulty of securing a bank loan.
In July 2021, Jusleine Daniel walked into a New Jersey bank with her family, confident and ready to start their homeownership journey by applying for a mortgage loan. But after years of preparation, she was blindsided when the first question the loan officer asked was about her zip code. The question raised alarm bells for Jusleine, an Argentinian-Haitian artist and licensed clinical social worker. To her, the inquiry was a subtle form of redlining—an old, discriminatory practice used to deny loans to Black and Latino communities, effectively preventing them from buying into certain neighborhoods. It was the first sign that their meeting that day would not go as planned, and ultimately, Jusleine and her family were rejected from the loan before ever even applying.
In this episode by Futuro Investigates in collaboration with Latino USA, we look at the disparities that make it harder for Latinos and Latinas to overcome barriers in mortgage lending and achieve homeownership. Our extensive analysis of mortgage application data in New Jersey proves that Jusleine’s story was not just one unfortunate experience, but an indication of a persistent and long history of housing inequities in the state of New Jersey.
Despite the Fair Housing Act outlawing redlining in 1968, the practice persists today. Our investigation revealed that between 2018 and 2022, Latinos were denied conventional home loans more often than white applicants, at roughly double the rate. And for Latinos who were able to secure a loan, they often paid higher interest rates than their white counterparts.
Our co-executive producer Peniley Ramírez takes us through the investigation, which underscores the deep, systemic barriers to homeownership that many Latinos and Latinas face. We follow Jusleine and her family’s housing journey, who channeled their painful experience of being rejected into their art by creating an installation to symbolize the broader issue of mortgage discrimination.
As Jusleine turned to art to call out these inequities, other efforts to address lending disparities have been underway as well. Last year, New Jersey passed legislation to offer down-payment assistance to first-generation homebuyers, a group that includes many Latinos.
You can read our full investigation on Futuro Investigates website in English here and also en español.
Featured image by the Associated Press.
