Washington has a history of racist housing policies. This would help right the wrong | Opinion

This legislative session, Washington lawmakers have an opportunity to make history by correcting it.

In particular, they can take a nation-leading step to address real barriers that — more than 50 years after the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed racially restrictive real estate covenants — continue to stand between too many families of color and the dream of homeownership. Those who were barred from home ownership didn’t just suffer personally, their children and grandchildren continue to pay the price. House Bill 1474 would address this injustice.

Some readers might wonder how discriminatory housing policies that prohibited the purchase, lease or occupation of a home by entire communities of people — illegal since 1968 — could still affect a family’s ability to buy a home today. But if you’re a middle-class homeowner, there’s a good chance that you were first able to buy a home with some level of financial support from a family member to help with the initial down payment or with closing costs. There’s also a good chance that your family member was able to offer that support because they already own a home. And if you have or will have children, this is great news for them. The best predictor of whether your children will one day own a home is whether you did — just as your best predictor was whether your parents did, and their best predictor was whether your grandparents did.

Homeownership is the largest source of household wealth among Americans. National data shows that a homeowner who purchased a home 10 years ago has gained $225,000 in home equity today. This wealth doesn’t just accumulate for a household; it’s passed down across generations. In fact, homeownership is the most common way generational wealth is built and transmitted. And the advantages of homeownership only accumulate: Homeownership in a family enables more homeownership within that family’s subsequent generations.

There’s another side to that coin, of course. If you’re struggling to become a homebuyer — especially during this time of a historic housing shortage and historically high prices — your chances are made near-impossible if you aren’t able to rely on financial support from a family member to help with these costs. And if you’re not able to do so, there’s a good chance that this is because they also don’t own a home — likely because their parents didn’t either. Just as the advantages of owning a home accumulate, so do the disadvantages of not owning one: A lack of homeownership in a family perpetuates an ongoing lack of homeownership within that family’s subsequent generations.

The issue of housing availability and affordability is one that affects communities in every corner of the state, and one that lawmakers have rightly made a priority this legislative session, with a number of proposals to address the problem, including increasing the housing supply and new financing for affordable housing. But the issue of generational wealth within this context deserves particular attention — especially when we understand that a family’s legacy as homeowners directly affects the likelihood of homeownership in current and future generations and connect it to our history of racial discrimination.

If you’re a descendant of those prevented by law from owning homes, you could be wondering: If the law hurt my family in decades past, could it be used to help my family today? And you wouldn’t be alone. After all, the data is stark: Only about a third of black families own their own home in Washington, compared to two-thirds of white families. The data on household wealth is even more stark: black families in Washington have one-eighth the net worth of white families.

Lawmakers have proposed a remedy to address this inequity and change the trajectory of this issue. House Bill 1474 would create a new homeownership account that would provide loans to help cover down payments and also closing costs for those who were prohibited from owning a home in Washington because of racially restrictive covenants, or their descendants.

To fund this account, the bill would add $100 to the document recording fee that is assessed in real estate transactions. I am president of the Washington Association of REALTORS, and, as a rule, I am generally not supportive of adding more fees to real estate transactions. But this proposal is a major exception to that rule.

Prohibiting discrimination is one thing; repairing its past and ongoing effects is another.

While our generation did not create the policies outlawed by the federal Fair Housing Act, the importance of homeownership requires more than just an acknowledgment of racial discrimination — it requires action. As a mechanism, creating a new homeownership account for descendants of those who were denied housing opportunities is simple; as a solution, its effects will be profound.

State lawmakers — and we, their constituents — have a historic opportunity to address the historic injustice of racial discrimination in housing.

Together, we can lead the nation in repairing the effects of this injustice and create a better economic future for individual families and entire communities throughout our state.

Let’s pass House Bill 1474 into law.

Alisha Harrison is president of the Washington Association of REALTORS.