The Post & Courier
LADSON — Filled with joy as she walked outside her new home, Stella Dukes lifted her hands in the air.
It was her latest expression of praise that she’d been demonstrating throughout the day spent touring her new house.
“Freedom!” she said. “I can’t stop praising the Lord. You have to excuse me.”
Dukes, 70, and her husband, James, 62, are first-time homeowners. They rented properties throughout their 41-year marriage and just moved from a house in Park Circle, where rents and home prices have increased as new development took shape.
But now, their new one-story house in Ladson will be a place they can call their own. The house will likely serve as a wealth-generating asset for their descendants, putting the family on a path toward financial freedom.
Though the Dukes have been able to realize their dream of homeownership, many African Americans still struggle to reach that mark, especially when compared with the number of White Americans who own houses.
The homeownership rate for Black Americans is almost 30 percent less than the rate for Whites, according to a recent report from the National Association of Realtors. The association reports 42 percent of African Americans own their residences compared with a rate of 69.8 percent for White Americans.
Data paints a similar picture in South Carolina.
The homeownership rate for Whites in the Palmetto State is 77.5 percent and for Blacks 51.3 percent, according to a 2020 report by Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Prosperity Now.
Lowcountry housing advocates and those in the real estate market argue the disparity illustrates a lingering effect of centuries of discrimination. They say it’s also the result of injustices toward Blacks still taking shape. Nonprofit, municipal and real estate industry leaders are working to increase the number of African American homeowners in the Lowcountry.
…
A key way to help more African Americans obtain homes is by making available more houses affordable. Affordability has become a crisis in the Lowcountry, where rents and home prices have skyrocketed over the years.
The national Individual Development Account program funded efforts by the South Carolina Association of Community Economic Development to create housing. The program incentivized people to save money for a down payment, and SCACED would match the savings three to one.
Between 2001 and 2019, the organization was able to help 121 people buy their homes, a majority of whom were African American, said Bernie Mazyck, CEO of SCACED. The program ended in 2015.