What does it really mean to invest in the Black community?
It means empowering the Black financial institution behind that dollar.
Let's talk about getting a mortgage.
I believe that home ownership is essential for the Black community.
We're like two old hippies, two old green heads.
When we got our first car, I paid that 23 percent because I didn't have bad credit.
I had no credit.
But I think a lot of time it just that we don't think long term.
The joys of home ownership are real, but so are the challenges.
Poverty has a way of recycling itself.
If you born a certain way, it's hard to get out.
My name is Aaron Mitchell and I lead HR for Netflix animation studios.
My wife and I decided we need to buy a house.
Wife had a good job, really good credit.
And when it came time for our mortgage,
the only option that was made available was a subprime mortgage.
A couple of years after the piece of property
that we purchase was now less than half of what we purchased.
Our mortgage payments were about to go through the roof while the value of the home cratered.
We later found out many of these banks just discriminated.
That was revealed in the court of law.
And we were having these debates
about all the things that went wrong and all the people who did things wrong.
And I'm like, I'm one of those stupid people and I'm not that stupid.
This isn't about stupid people.
This is about a system that was designed for people to be taken advantage of.
The American dream has always been the white picket fence,
sharp cut, green grass, a yard and coming home to your family
after a long, hard day to a safe environment, right?
Well, the Black American dream is a bit deferred.
In fact, Black home ownership is about 30 percent behind white Americans.
Black people go through extremities compared to other Americans when buying a home.
Black families experience difficult standards during the process
for purchasing and in general are subject to lower value homes.
Plus, they're getting taxed with much higher rates from the banks.
On top of all this, Black families are typically bringing in student
loan debt, multi-families with on average little to no generational wealth,
and in turn using their pensions or 401K to offset the down payment costs,
which then incurs a penalty.
Money is being lost.
And don't even get us started on the leaps and bounds needed for Black people
to also sell their homes at the actual old value.
The real estate and homeowners market is the wild wild west.
And they're making a lot of effort
to make sure Black people only have access to ride on the smaller horses
while everyone else seems to have the most fit horses across the lands.
Well, there are some things that we just can't run away from.
So let's run towards it.
To be a homeowner and a person of color,
it's the first step in generational wealth.
It's one of the greatest accomplishments I've ever made.
My name is Dominique Lumpkin.
I'm a Memphis, Tennessee native.
Appraisals are a little bit racially motivated.
I just know from experiences with other First-Time homebuyers
that a lot of the appraisals for their houses seem to be a little bit
more than market value because of the neighborhood.
With HOPE, I became a homeowner in three months for less than five thousand dollars.
I'm a part of their zero down program.
What they did was they upfronted all of the down payment costs.
I only had to pay for closing
To be able to have those conversations with people
that didn't have a clue that that was possible for them.
We had paid rent for awhile, so we got to a certain point in our life
we realized that in order to really accumulate some wealth
that we need to perhaps think in terms of trying to buy a home.
In 2015, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that sort of put a halt on the home hunt.
The people at HOPE were very, very, very, very
helpful and encouraging along the way.
We for the same money, we got twice as much house.
So I think for me and I know for her to a certain degree as well.
Growing up, feeling like ownership is the key.
I value the fact that they, in my eyes,
went the extra mile to help us realize our dream.
I have a place that is my own, that is my land,
that no one has permission to walk upon my land without my approval.
It's power.
And so I think about the importance of telling these stories about Black
businesses, thriving, Black communities thriving,
Black people thriving as a result of being empowered by capital.
I think a lot of people have just assumed
that there is no way to solve these problems or that maybe
folks are not progressing because they choose this.
But really, the reality is,
if you can just correct some of the wrongs in these systems,
then these communities can flourish and we all flourish as a result.