Who Gets to Stay, Who Has to Leave: Reclaiming Housing as a Right
Each June, National Homeownership Month invites Americans to celebrate one of the most visible symbols of the American Dream: the house with the welcome mat, a yard to tend, and the keys not just to a home but a future filled with possibility. Established by President George W. Bush in 2002, the proclamation aimed to expand homeownership opportunities among historically underserved communities.
Yet in 2025, the barriers it sought to dismantle remain firmly in place. Behind that widely celebrated vision of homeownership lies a more painful truth for many Black and Brown Americans—one shaped not by opportunity, but by centuries of discrimination.
Homeownership has long been tied to upward mobility in the United States, but access to that mobility has been systematically denied. For Black and Brown families, owning a home has never simply meant achieving financial security. It has meant navigating—and resisting—a housing system built on entrenched systems of exclusion, such as redlining, displacement, discriminatory lending, and forced migration.
As the nation celebrates homeownership, it’s worth asking: Who is still fighting for the right to stay? Who continues to be pushed out?
How Housing Became a Racial Justice Issue
The racial homeownership gap is no accident—and it's not new. It is the result of longstanding policies and systemic decisions that have denied Black Americans equal access to housing for generations. In 1960—before the Civil Rights Movement secured key legislative protections—65% of White Americans owned homes, while only 38% of Black Americans did. This disparity was rooted in discriminatory housing practices. More than four decades later, during President Bush’s administration, the gap remained: 74.6% of White Americans owned homes, compared to just 45.3% for Black Americans. This persistent gap reflects the cumulative impact of exclusionary policies, such as:
Redlining: In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) used color-coded maps to assess lending risk. Predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods were marked in red and labeled “hazardous,” cutting off fair access to mortgages and reinforcing segregation.
Racial Covenants: These legal agreements explicitly barred Black and Brown families from owning property in certain areas.
Urban Renewal Projects: Mid-20th century developments like the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York City and demolition of Southwest Washington, D.C. displaced hundreds of thousands of families to make way for highways and commercial spaces.
These structures aren’t relics of the past. Today, their consequences are visible in lending disparities, exclusionary zoning laws, and enduring racial inequities in generational wealth and homeownership. The same patterns of racial stratification that once redlined neighborhoods now drive gentrification, speculative development, and the displacement of longtime residents.
Displacement in the Present Day
Homeownership isn’t just about buying in—it’s about being able to stay. Yet in 2025, that stability remains elusive, with many Black and Brown households continuing to face disproportionately high levels of housing insecurity. According to the U.S. Census data from the first quarter of 2025, the Black homeownership rate is 44.7%. In comparison, the rate for White households is 74.2%. This gap determines where families can plant their roots, and where they’re most vulnerable to displacement when rising property values make neighborhoods more appealing to outsiders than sustainable for longtime residents.
A 2025 report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) found that cities most impacted by gentrification and displacement include Washington, D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Atlanta, and the San Francisco Bay Area. These cities are home to historically Black neighborhoods where families have deep multi-generational roots, shaped by the Great Migration, wartime migration, and mid-20th century resettlement. Today, those same communities are at risk as rising housing costs and redevelopment push out residents who have helped shape these cities' cultural and economic fabric. This high neighborhood racial turnover uproots families, disrupts traditions, and erases cultural histories.
Housing justice means ensuring people stay rooted in communities shaped by memory, identity, and a shared sense of belonging. It's about who gets to belong, who has the chance to build a future, and who is forced aside when profits take precedence. When we talk about housing justice, we are talking about safeguarding cultural survival, economic autonomy, and the right to stay.
Reclaiming Housing as a Human Right
Housing justice is under attack—and the consequences for Black, Brown, and low-income communities are immediate and severe. A leading example is Project 2025, a federal policy agenda led by The Heritage Foundation and conservative groups. Several of its key authors now hold senior positions in the Trump administration, effectively bringing the blueprint into government. Project 2025 proposes eliminating civil rights offices within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), weakening fair housing enforcement and dismantling initiatives designed to expand affordable housing. If enacted, these rollbacks would strip away vital protections, accelerate displacement, and further entrench segregation, deepening housing insecurity and undermining the fight for equitable, livable communities.
In the face of these threats, communities are taking action to protect housing as a human right, including efforts like:
Policy Advocacy and Equity Efforts: Organizations like the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) address the root causes of housing inequality by advocating for affordable housing policies and advancing racial equity in housing access.
Community Land Trusts (CLTs): Nonprofit models that separate land ownership from housing to ensure long-term affordability. Research from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy shows that CLTs can stabilize neighborhoods and preserve affordability across generations.
Eviction Prevention Programs: These programs provide tenants and landlords with mediation services and emergency rental assistance to prevent court-ordered removals. According to the National League of Cities, these programs have been proven to reduce eviction filings and stabilize families.
Tenant Organizing: Efforts where renters form unions or advocacy groups to demand fair housing practices, rent control, and anti-displacement protections. The Right to the City Alliance supports local tenant organizing efforts that build grassroots power and advance community control of housing.
Cross-Sector Partnerships: Emergency shelters like Coalition for the Homeless often collaborate with affordable housing providers to support long-term stability, and networks like Housing& are working with colleges to create student housing solutions. These efforts show that protecting housing as a human right requires broad, coordinated participation.
These initiatives and many others are building pathways to long-term housing stability and community resilience, offering a blueprint for action and empowering Black and Brown communities to remain rooted, build wealth, and preserve neighborhood identity.
Telling the Truth About Displacement and Ending It
Real change starts with naming the harm and choosing a different path. But when we call displacement “revitalization” or gentrification “progress,” we obscure the truth: communities are being uprooted and disinvested. At English Hudson, we recognize the importance of narrative truth and believe in the power of storytelling to dismantle injustice. That’s why we partner with organizations on the frontlines of housing justice, such as Women of Color in Community Development, Housing&, Manna, Inc., and Parity.
As National Homeownership Month reminds us, the promise of a home is still painfully out of reach for so many Black and Brown families. The work isn’t done—not with the homeownership gap steady and displacement rising, or with policies like Project 2025 threatening what protections remain.
Until the systems that push people out are dismantled and those fighting to stay are heard, we can’t celebrate homeownership without confronting the truth of whose dream it really is.