The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) just made an important game-changing announcement at its recent national convention in New Orleans. NAREB announced a historic engagement with Wall Street investors to launch a $800 million Homeowner’s Assurance Program (HAP) to address the devastating effects of the housing mortgage crisis for Black America and other minority families and communities across the United States. The state of Black American housing is in crisis more disproportionately than any other group in America. Combined with the unemployment crisis that has also increased the ranks of abject poverty in the African American community, the housing crisis makes it paramount that national organizations like NAREB step up to the plate with solutions to the economic challenges facing Black Americans.
The good
news is that NAREB has gone considerably beyond describing the magnitude of the
problems confronting the Black community in 2011 with respect to the array of
critical housing issues. They are
taking quantitative and qualitative financial action proactively and the Black
community and other minorities engulf in the national housing and mortgage
crisis will be the direct beneficiaries of the NAREM Housing Assurance Program
(HAP). We all should be very
grateful to the national leadership of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers
for putting the real estate and housing interests of the Black community as a
national priority.
If other
African American professionals would consider following the leadership
methodology that is being exhibited by NAREB on the housing issue as well as
the other related critical economic empowerment issues challenges our families
and communities, then the future of our plight for freedom, justice, equality
and empowerment will be considerably advanced with greater progress and
achievement.
Various
Wall Street investors, including Paul R. Taylor, Jr. and Cicero Wilson of SRP
Development Management, have committed to providing initial capital for the
purchase of non-performing loans and REO assets up to $200 million per quarter
for the HAP initiative of NAREB beginning this month, August 2011. At the NAREB conference in New Orleans,
representatives of one of the top four national banks in the United States also
indicated the HAP initiative has the potential over the next several weeks and
months to attract additional capital and non-performing loan or bank-held
mortgages to the tune of $1.2 billion per month.
Thus, the
sheer magnitude of what the NAREB is launching has already caught the immediate
attention of the major players in the U.S. banking industry. We are talking about the financial
recovery and economic development of the Black community through the systematic
recovering of property and real estate ownership. The wealth and empowerment of African Americans is directly
related to homeownership. This not about giving charity, this is about gaining
back a sense of self-reliance, responsibility and empowerment for our
communities. We need more homeowners with mortgages that they can afford. NAREB understands this point and is taking
an important step forward to assist brothers and sisters in our community to be
viable homeowners again.
Prior to
announcing the innovative Housing Assurance Program, NAREB published a Public
Policy Paper on Housing and African Americans. The policy paper documented that Black communities have
borne a disproportionate share of the damage from foreclosed real estate left
in the wake of the country’s severe housing and economic crisis. The
accelerated rate of massive evictions of Black families from their foreclosed
homes, and the subsequent dumping of foreclosed or abandon properties in Black
and other minority communities without a sustainable recovery solution is now
causing a new and expanded crisis of undervalued and/or vacant blighted properties
throughout our neighborhoods. NAREB President-Elect Julius Cartwright stated, “An innovative housing
assistance program and strategy are needed. Many of the current programs are ineffective and they do not
adequately address all the needs in our nation’s communities, particularly
minority communities.” We are with
Julius Cartwright and that is why we salute the initiative of NAREM.
The Joint
Center for Political Studies, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), the
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) and many
other national organizations will work collaboratively with NAREB with respect
to the Housing Assurance Program. Time is of the essence and we need to get the word out throughout the
Black community about this program. People do suffer from the lack of knowledge and understanding. NAREM has the knowledge and the
professional experience on the critical issue of housing. Now it is our task to promote the
sharing of this information and to create a groundswell of understanding and
awareness. The future economic
recovery of the Black community is at state. Let’s work together to turn this
crisis into an opportunity for economic empowerment.
Dr.
Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is Senior Advisor to the Black Alliance for Educational
Options (BAEO) and is President of Education Online Services Corporation.
