Homeownership

Homeownership in United States

United States

Housing is an essential component of health and well-being. Homeownership provides a sense of stability and safety by preventing frequent moves and minimizing the financial burdens associated with renting. Additionally, homeownership plays an important role in wealth accumulation, especially among low-income families. Wealth is a major determining factor of health and income inequality remains a significant public health issue. Homeownership provides an opportunity for individuals to build wealth for themselves and their families. Low-income households, in particular, may accumulate wealth more successfully through homeownership than through other means.

Homeownership is significantly lower among Black adults than white adults. Racial segregation and mortgage discrimination have historically kept Black Americans from purchasing houses; these issues persist today. Moreover, low-income and racial/ethnic minority households are more likely to transition from owning back to renting than high-income white households and are less likely to regain ownership.

Strategies to ensure greater access to homeownership include: 

• Providing information and knowledge about the home buying process, especially to low-income and racial/ethnic minority households. 
• Expanding financial subsidies for down payments or housing reparations to increase purchasing power among low-income households.
• Reforming the current federal tax policy to use a tax credit rather than a deduction, which would increase tax benefits from purchasing a house. 
• Expanding financial support for low-income homeowners, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, to prevent them from transitioning back to renting. 
• Enforcing fair housing laws to protect racial/ethnic minority buyers from discrimination.

Healthy People 2030 identifies housing instability as a key issue within the Economic Stability domain of the social determinants of health.

Boehm, Thomas P., and Alan Schlottmann. “Wealth Accumulation and Homeownership: Evidence for Low-Income Households.” Cambridge, MA: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, December 2004. https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/wealthaccumulationandhomeownership.pdf.

Herbert, Christopher E., Shannon Rieger, and Jonathan Spader. “Expanding Access to Homeownership as a Means of Fostering Residential Integration and Inclusion.” In A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2017. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/media/imp/a_shared_future_expanding_access_to_homeownership_fostering_inclusion.pdf.

Krisberg, Kim. “Income Inequality: When Wealth Determines Health: Earnings Influential as Lifelong Social Determinant of Health.” The Nation’s Health 46, no. 8 (October 2016): 1–17.

Rolfe, Steve, Lisa Garnham, Jon Godwin, Isobel Anderson, Pete Seaman, and Cam Donaldson. “Housing as a Social Determinant of Health and Wellbeing: Developing an Empirically-Informed Realist Theoretical Framework.” BMC Public Health 20, no. 1 (December 2020): 1138. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09224-0.