Racial Homeownership Gap in Melrose Remains Stark

If you read the July 1 Boston Globe article “More Black and Latino homebuyers in Greater Boston, but racial homeownership gap remains stark” and wondered how Melrose fits into this good news-bad news headline, the answer is in the bad news part. The racial ownership gap in Melrose remains stark. In 2021, there were 502 home-purchase mortgages issued to Melrose homebuyers, and only four of these were issued to Black homebuyers. This is less than 1 percent of the total mortgages (0.8%). This means that the percentage of Black homebuyers in the total population of homebuyers (0.8%) was well below the percentage of Black residents in the total population of Melrose (3.34%).

The data for the Globe article and this letter comes from lending information reported in compliance with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The HMDA website has data that can be analyzed for the years 2007-2021. Over those 15 years, there have been 7,244 home-purchase mortgages issued for Melrose homebuyers, and 77 were for Black homebuyers (1.06% of all mortgages originated for Melrose home purchases). In no year did the percentage of Black homebuyers exceed the percentage of Black residents in Melrose. The homebuying population was always less diverse than the residential population. The best year was 2016, when Black homebuyers accounted for 2.7% of all Melrose mortgages issued that year. The three most recent years of data are three of the worst, with Black homebuyers accounting for 0.6% of the mortgages in 2019, 0.4% in 2020 and 0.8% in 2021. The worst year was in 2008, during the Great Recession (0.2%).

The HMDA data show the past and present harms of systemic racism. Melrose was a red-lined city, which meant a network of city, state and federal regulations and practices prevented Black people from buying homes in Melrose. Red-lining started in the late 1930’s and ended with the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968. As such, a generation of Black home buyers were excluded from Melrose. Moreover, since this racial segregation was in place throughout much of the United States, a generation of Black Americans were denied the opportunity to buy a home, and thus denied the opportunity to accumulate and pass on the wealth created from home ownership. This is a major reason Black families have less money than white families. This wealth gap will perpetuate the homeownership gap in Melrose.

This HMDA analysis was done for the Reparations for Melrose working group. As a group we analyze and report racial harms throughout Melrose, in areas such as housing, education, healthcare and policing. The goals of these efforts are to identify and address racial harms and to build grassroots support for city, state and federal work on reparations. To read the racial harms reports, or for more information, visit reparationsformelrose.org.