The proposal is billed as a “first step towards closing the racial wealth gap,” and would be paid for by an estate tax. Warren’s plan would offer down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers in formerly redlined areas or low-income areas that experienced other forms of legal segregation, qualifying them for a grant applicable to a home anywhere in the country.Grantees must also earn less than a maximum annual family income. Harris’s plan would invest $100 billion in assistance for down payments and closing costs, to be made available to those who have lived in government or rental housing for 10 or more preceding years in a formerly redlined area that is low-to-moderate income today.

In each plan, redlining maps are used to determine eligibility for beneficiaries, to differing degrees: Redlining was the practice of outlining areas with sizable Black populations in red ink on maps as a warning to mortgage lenders, effectively isolating Black people in areas that would suffer lower levels of investment than their white counterparts. The Democratic candidates hope that the contours of these old maps-once used by the government-sponsored Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) from 1933 to 1977-offer the blueprint for closing the racial homeownership gap and increasing prosperity among largely Black and Brown Americans who were robbed of wealth for generations under redlining’s legal discriminatory policy. Mayor Pete Buttigieg-have released housing proposals that utilize a curious vector to implement their respective remedies for historical discrimination: redlining maps. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and South Bend, Ind. Over the last few months, several Democratic presidential hopefuls-namely Sen.

White blight definition