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20 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 53 (2006)
Race, Homeownership and Wealth

handle is hein.journals/wajlp20 and id is 59 raw text is: Race, Homeownership and Wealth Thomas M. Shapiro* Closing the racial wealth gap must be at the forefront of the civil rights agenda in the twenty-first century. This Article examines homeownership as a main policy strategy to move toward this goal. The Article opens by restating the crucial importance of closing the racial wealth gap, and offers an early assessment of this agenda. Next, the Article argues that homeownership is an appropriate strategy to attack the racial wealth gap. Finally, the Article examines the various promises and many potential pitfalls and challenges facing minority homeownership. I. WHY WEALTH MATTERS Wealth, as distinguished from income, offers the key to understanding racial stratification in the United States, especially the persistence of racial inequality in a post-civil rights era in which minorities have made remarkable advances. A wealth perspective provides a fresh way to examine the playing field. It provides a concrete way of analyzing how the past connects to the present, and thus provides a mechanism to refresh our historical memory of race. Further, a wealth perspective has significant implications for our thinking about affirmative action and our conceptualization of equality. First, however, I must outline this wealth perspective and explain why it is so important. Wealth is the total value of a family's financial resources minus all debts. Income includes earnings from work or its substitutes, like pension, disability, unemployment insurance, or social assistance. Wealth is a special kind of money because it represents ownership * Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University.

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