Speaker 1: Fulturo investigates Investia.
Speaker 2: Housing as a standalone issue is now one of the
Speaker 2: top five concerns for Latino voters, and that's the first
Speaker 2: time this has happened in an election cycle. But as
Speaker 2: housing costs and mortgage rates in the country continue to increase,
Speaker 2: the dream of owning and affording a home is becoming
Speaker 2: more and more elusive.
Speaker 3: I already been preparing for this moment. I brought all
Speaker 3: the paperwork, my credit score, my list of liabilities, my
Speaker 3: employment history, the information regarding my business.
Speaker 2: That's Juscelyn Danielle. She's Argentinian and Haitian, and like many immigrants,
Speaker 2: she's many things. She's a licensed clinical social worker, she
Speaker 2: founded her own psychotherapy practice, and she's also an artist,
Speaker 2: which influences everything she does. Juselene, who's based in New Jersey,
Speaker 2: said she spent years saving money and building her credit
Speaker 2: and making sure all of her paperwork was in order
Speaker 2: before even applying for a mortgage. But for Juicelyn and
Speaker 2: her family, the dream of buying a home almost slipped
Speaker 2: by them entirely.
Speaker 3: When we went to the mortgage officer, this was the
Speaker 3: first question that he asked, was your zip code?
Speaker 4: I knew that's something I was wrong.
Speaker 2: This question about her zip code set off alarm bells
Speaker 2: for Jusselyn, who knew that historically, people living in predominantly
Speaker 2: black and Latino Latina LATINX communities had a harder time
Speaker 2: getting bank loans. It's a practice known as redlining, and
Speaker 2: even though it was outlawed more than fifty years ago,
Speaker 2: it continues to drive inequities in mortgage lending today.
Speaker 3: A black woman with an accent and a Latino guy
Speaker 3: with an accent. This is the textbook discrimination.
Speaker 2: From Futro Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria Rosa.
Speaker 2: Today is part of our elections series The Latino Factor,
Speaker 2: How We Vote. We dive into the disparities that make
Speaker 2: it harder for Latinos and Latinas to overcome the mortgage wall.
Speaker 2: Juslen's experience, which we heard at the top of the show,
Speaker 2: is far from unique, and there's vast data to prove that,
Speaker 2: data that we dug into and analyzed ourselves. My co
Speaker 2: executive producer, Penni letter Amidis is with me now in
Speaker 2: the studio and she led the investigation and it's with
Speaker 2: me today to share our main findings. Hey, Penni let Hey, Marianne,
Speaker 2: all right, so tell us how how we went about
Speaker 2: this investigation.
Speaker 4: Well, we first started looking into this mortgage data after
Speaker 4: we learned about what happened to Justlyan, but also happened
Speaker 4: to you know, her daughter, Milena, and to Milena's father,
Speaker 4: Martin Calvino. And Martin is from Why. He's a multimedia
Speaker 4: artist and he's also a data scientist, and after they
Speaker 4: were rejected in twenty twenty one from even applying for
Speaker 4: a loan, Martin was convinced that certain lenders in New
Speaker 4: Jersey were more likely to reject Latino borrowers more than
Speaker 4: white applicants.
Speaker 2: Okay, so how did you go about determining if Martin's
Speaker 2: suspicions were true?
Speaker 4: Well, Maria, we had a data journalist and we did
Speaker 4: our own extensive analysis using this public information, and it
Speaker 4: took us several months. We analyzed hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 4: mortgage applications filed in New Jersey from twenty eighteen to
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two, and we focused on conventional mortgages because
Speaker 4: these are the luans that are offered by private companies.
Speaker 2: So the data was already public, but someone actually has
Speaker 2: to pull it together and make sense of it all.
Speaker 5: So what did you end up finding?
Speaker 4: So we found that Latinos were more likely to be
Speaker 4: rejected than white applicants. And this was not just in
Speaker 4: one bank or in one city. This was the case
Speaker 4: across financial institutions in New Jersey and Maria. To make
Speaker 4: things even worse, those Latinos who get a mortgage loan
Speaker 4: paid higher interest rates than their fellow white borrowers, even
Speaker 4: on similar mortgages.
Speaker 2: And dear listener, what this disparity shows us is that
Speaker 2: there are deep systemic barriers to home ownership for Latinos
Speaker 2: and latinos in this country, whether it's access to credit,
Speaker 2: not being able to make enough of a down payment,
Speaker 2: or not even being in the right zip code, as
Speaker 2: we heard from Juicelyn at the top of our show.
Speaker 4: Yes, and that's interesting because the An Institute, which is
Speaker 4: a think tank in Washington that does economic and social
Speaker 4: policy research, is projecting the Latinos hear this will make
Speaker 4: up seventy percent of first time home buyers in the
Speaker 4: next twenty years.
Speaker 5: Wow, that is an extraordinary number.
Speaker 2: Latinos making up seventy percent of first time home buyers
Speaker 2: in the next twenty years.
Speaker 5: I mean that's.
Speaker 2: Huge, So, dear listener, let's really attempt to understand what
Speaker 2: these lending disparities in New Jersey show us about the
Speaker 2: future of home ownership for Latinos in this country, especially
Speaker 2: as housing access continues to be a growing concern nationwide
Speaker 2: in this election year. And we're going to start in
Speaker 2: Highland Park, which is a small town in New Jersey
Speaker 2: where Juslyn lives.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Benny Lay and a team of our producers for visited
Speaker 2: her in her home in November of twenty twenty three. Okay,
Speaker 2: Penny Ley, with all of that background, I think we're
Speaker 2: ready now, So why don't you take us to your
Speaker 2: reporting in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Speaker 4: We're visiting just Lean on a cool fall morning, and
Speaker 4: the wide tree lined street she lives on is quiet.
Speaker 4: Her house is two stories. It sits on the corner
Speaker 4: with a big lown in front and steps leading up
Speaker 4: to a Porsche. It's painting in a muted blue collar
Speaker 4: and it has white trim around the windows and edges.
Speaker 4: Are you I mean.
Speaker 6: Space?
Speaker 4: Fine? Just Lean takes us throughout the side door, which
Speaker 4: is where her office is located, and it's separated from
Speaker 4: the rest of the home that's where she plans out
Speaker 4: her art projects. As soon as you walk in, you
Speaker 4: can tell a visual artist lives here. The room is
Speaker 4: full of color. One corner is filled with green plants
Speaker 4: and framed artwork lines the soft blue walls. JUSTLYNI is
Speaker 4: fifty years old, and she has this bibrant voice but
Speaker 4: a quiet presence with a bright and big smile.
Speaker 3: So sometimes we get very attached to things, but then
Speaker 3: eventually you will have to release them and let them
Speaker 3: go as it becomes something else.
Speaker 4: Today she's wearing a light pink sweater with a rhyin
Speaker 4: stone ball on the front, and her dark hair is
Speaker 4: a style in a long braid, and she twisted red
Speaker 4: and pink flowers in it. We're visiting just Lean two
Speaker 4: years after she and Martin bought this house, but getting
Speaker 4: here though to way longer than that.
Speaker 3: I've been moving from place to place from Queens, Flashing
Speaker 3: Lumber and Spring Lake. I think I have multi in
Speaker 3: my whole life at least fifty times.
Speaker 4: Juselyn remembers that in one occasion, she was removed overnight
Speaker 4: from an apartment that she was ranting in Queens, New York,
Speaker 4: and it was because the landlord decided that she needed
Speaker 4: the space for her relatives.
Speaker 3: And I was like, but I already pay the rent
Speaker 3: and I have all the things, and I had to
Speaker 3: go to work and I had to go to school.
Speaker 3: And she was like, I'm sorry, but you know, like
Speaker 3: my family coming in that you cannot come back.
Speaker 4: Her experience highlights a common issue for many renters. Things
Speaker 4: can just get too unpredictable. And there is of course
Speaker 4: the rising cause of rent, which is a problem nationwide.
Speaker 4: More than half Latino renters in the US say they
Speaker 4: spend more than a third of their income on rent.
Speaker 4: And this election year, Paul's show is the economy that
Speaker 4: is concerning Latino voters the most, and of course housing
Speaker 4: is a big part of that. California is probably the
Speaker 4: first place that comes to mind when we talk about
Speaker 4: the housing crisis. Dim Hernandez is a California state director
Speaker 4: for Me Familia Vota and this is a national organization
Speaker 4: that works on building Latino political power through civic engagement.
Speaker 4: He says, the economy goes beyond numbers and percentages. It's
Speaker 4: about how it becomes real in people's daily lives.
Speaker 7: They wake up, they go off and they get a coffee,
Speaker 7: and that coffee used to be probably four or five
Speaker 7: dollars and now it's seven. They work at their job
Speaker 7: which has not increased their wages, and then when they
Speaker 7: go to the grocery store that night to get food
Speaker 7: for their family, they see the price of milk has
Speaker 7: increased and they go home and they worry about rent.
Speaker 7: And so when we talk about the economy, we use
Speaker 7: indicators like the market, but we don't use indicators like
Speaker 7: individual sentiment of the consumer.
Speaker 4: What team told us echoes what Unidos US, which is
Speaker 4: another advocacy organization in DC, founding a study that is
Speaker 4: that in this election year, Latinos want their policymakers to
Speaker 4: prioritize addressing the cause of living and the housing prices.
Speaker 7: And so it makes us election even more critical this
Speaker 7: year of ensuring that the folks that were electing and
Speaker 7: the folks that were putting in the office care about
Speaker 7: these things.
Speaker 4: And as Latinos faced multiple economic burdens, many of them
Speaker 4: still dream of owning their home. Onido's US found that
Speaker 4: sixty five percent of Latino renters want to buy a
Speaker 4: house but have not been able to After renting in
Speaker 4: Queens for a while, Justlyne eventually made them move to
Speaker 4: New Jersey. Her many experiences as a renter instill in
Speaker 4: her the goal of owning a home, and she said
Speaker 4: she wanted to achieve that stability and that will become
Speaker 4: even more pressing when her daughter, Milena was born twelve
Speaker 4: years ago.
Speaker 3: So for me, when I have my daughter, there was
Speaker 3: no question about it, like I was going to give
Speaker 3: that stability to her.
Speaker 4: Just Lyn remembers the moment when she decided that it
Speaker 4: was about time to take the big step. It was
Speaker 4: December twenty nineteen. She was renting a place in Highland Park,
Speaker 4: not too far from where she lives.
Speaker 3: Down the moment that I decided that I was going
Speaker 3: to get the home is like my previous landlord, I
Speaker 3: planted a tulip in my backyard and she went outside
Speaker 3: and she took it out and she threw her in
Speaker 3: the garage.
Speaker 4: What so No, by the moment that I decided that.
Speaker 3: I ron my home, Wow, yeah, a.
Speaker 4: Tu live in the garbage just because the landlord didn't
Speaker 4: like it. This singular moment was pivotal in just Lyn's life.
Speaker 3: Flowers helped me to think about the nature of existence.
Speaker 4: Gulyn just loved flowers. She incorporates flowers in almost all
Speaker 4: her projects. Seeing the landlord throw away the tulip she
Speaker 4: planted was the final extra for her and for Martin,
Speaker 4: So they started getting ready. Justlyne prepared all her paperwork
Speaker 4: and her savings. She learned all about the buying process,
Speaker 4: and less than two years later, just Lene, Martin and
Speaker 4: their daughter Milena made the trip to that bank investor's
Speaker 4: bank in Somerset, New Jersey, and they were ready to
Speaker 4: apply for a loan. She was already a client of
Speaker 4: the bank and said she had all her money saved there.
Speaker 3: So we get into the branch and I had to
Speaker 3: describe it like he was a guy in his late sixties,
Speaker 3: blue eyes, white American, and he goes like, hey, hi, guys,
Speaker 3: how are you And he did the fist pump to
Speaker 3: me at the fish.
Speaker 4: But it was the mortgage officer's second question that to
Speaker 4: just Lyn and her family back. It was when he
Speaker 4: asked about their zip code. What did you think at
Speaker 4: that moment that that was.
Speaker 3: A red black Because I did the real stare course,
Speaker 3: so I really knew about red lining. Why is it
Speaker 3: like a certain segment of the population can access on
Speaker 3: in the home. How is it that we got to
Speaker 3: be where we are so part of the course that
Speaker 3: I have been taken involved all of these.
Speaker 4: Again, when just lindsays redlining, she's referring to this old
Speaker 4: practice of banks deny it loans to black and Latino
Speaker 4: families and effectively preventing them from buying into certain neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: In nineteen sixty eight, the Third Housing Act banned redlining
Speaker 4: to end this racial discrimination.
Speaker 8: Now with this bill, the voice of Justice speaks again.
Speaker 8: It proclaims that fair housing for all all human beings
Speaker 8: who live in this country is now a part of
Speaker 8: the American way of life.
Speaker 4: But several investigations, including ours for this story, show how
Speaker 4: the practice is still very much alivee After the mortgage
Speaker 4: officer asked Justlyn about her zip code, he started questioning
Speaker 4: Martin's employment. Martin was said to begin a job just
Speaker 4: a couple of months later, and it was at Rodgers University,
Speaker 4: which is one of the top public research schools in
Speaker 4: the entire country. But according to Justlyn, the mortgage officer
Speaker 4: went after that.
Speaker 3: The fact that he had started the job and the
Speaker 3: fact that he didn't have employment history. Even though we
Speaker 3: were telling him that we were business owners and we
Speaker 3: were working together.
Speaker 4: In two thousand and seven, Justlyn founded her psychotherapy practice
Speaker 4: and her art collective, which is called Nice to Meet You,
Speaker 4: is also an LLC, so they have plenty of ways
Speaker 4: to demonstrate their family income. But despite this, just Lin
Speaker 4: says that things with the law an officer just continued
Speaker 4: to spiral downwards.
Speaker 3: He did at Runner Credit Escort, and he didn't verify
Speaker 3: any of the paperwork that we had.
Speaker 4: So you were rejected even before applying.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, he never put any information in a system, in
Speaker 3: a computer or anything like just to get us on
Speaker 3: sort of data to compare our qualifications to anything, to
Speaker 3: any standard that they might have at the bank.
Speaker 4: Since then, the bank was acquired by Citizens Financial Group,
Speaker 4: and we tried to contact this new bank, but the
Speaker 4: spokesperson said the company could not comment on just Lin's
Speaker 4: case because it predated the acquisition of Investors Bank. They
Speaker 4: told us that they were committed to quote creating an
Speaker 4: inclusive culture for their customers. You should know that just
Speaker 4: Lyn identifies herself as an Afro Latina. She was born
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles, but for the first half of her
Speaker 4: life she was living in Argentina, which is a predominantly
Speaker 4: white country. She said that in New Jersey she recognized
Speaker 4: that feeling from her childhood memories. I go pull you
Speaker 4: all my life.
Speaker 3: My mommy white, she's blonde, she has green eyes. So
Speaker 3: I clearly remember like one time we went to get
Speaker 3: ice cream and a lady that was sitting next to
Speaker 3: her said like, Linda Nete, oh you have two beautiful
Speaker 3: little black kids.
Speaker 4: Where did you get them from?
Speaker 3: So you know, like, I'm not putting up with any
Speaker 3: of these anymore, not at this age when I already
Speaker 3: know the laws. I'm not going to tolerate it, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to do something about it.
Speaker 4: And she did. After leaving the bank where she had
Speaker 4: hoped to start the process of buying a home, just
Speaker 4: Lean filed a complaint. She did it with the New
Speaker 4: Jersey Attorney General's Office with a division on civil rights.
Speaker 4: She said. She followed up with a claim for two years,
Speaker 4: and then she became accested with the process. There were
Speaker 4: just too many documents to submit and she ended up
Speaker 4: missing a deadline and the case was eventually dismissed. During
Speaker 4: this time, Martin started looking at mortgage application data in
Speaker 4: New Jersey.
Speaker 3: He spent hours like on the computers, you know, like Jesse,
Speaker 3: going through it, like creating different things to be able
Speaker 3: to tell the data.
Speaker 4: Martin's research led him to believe that certain lenders in
Speaker 4: the state of New Jersey were more likely to reject
Speaker 4: Latino burrowers than white applicants. Martin first reached out to
Speaker 4: us Abuduo Investigates in twenty twenty two to share what
Speaker 4: he found. We were deeply interested in his research, but
Speaker 4: we also needed to analyze the mortgage data in New
Speaker 4: Jersey ourselves, so we went to the same public database
Speaker 4: that our team us and we spent months doing our
Speaker 4: own extensive data analysis. So, using this public data, we
Speaker 4: went through hundreds of thousands of mortgage application outcomes and
Speaker 4: in the process we refined our methodology several times. We
Speaker 4: shared it with other investigators and other journalists, and we
Speaker 4: asked them to critique our methods. We wanted to be
Speaker 4: really sure that our conclusions were right, and finally we
Speaker 4: found a clear pattern. Between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: more than eleven percent of the conventional mortgage applications filed
Speaker 4: by latinos were rejected by lenders in New Jersey, and
Speaker 4: in the case of white residents, only around six percent
Speaker 4: were denied. So the data was there and it was
Speaker 4: pretty clear just lean story was not just an unfortunate experience.
Speaker 4: It indicated a persistent problem, one that has a long
Speaker 4: history in the state of New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino USA, we dive into our data analysis,
Speaker 2: which proves that New Jersey's disparities in home ownership make
Speaker 2: it one of the most inequitable states in the country.
Speaker 2: Stay with us, hey, we're back, and before the break,
Speaker 2: we shared Juicelyne's story and we heard from Benny Lay
Speaker 2: about the findings of our investigation. Our data analysis confirmed
Speaker 2: juicelyn and Martine's suspicions that Latinos like them, like me,
Speaker 2: and like many of you listening today, were denied home
Speaker 2: loans at roughly double the rate of white borrowers. Benny
Speaker 2: Lay is back in the studio with me now to
Speaker 2: talk more about our investigation. So, Benny Lay, what else
Speaker 2: did the data end up showing you?
Speaker 4: Well, Maria, the reason why it took us several months
Speaker 4: to analyze this mortgage data is because we were looking
Speaker 4: at five years worth of raw information. So as our
Speaker 4: first step, we filtered the decisions and we focused only
Speaker 4: on New Jersey.
Speaker 2: That would still leave a lot of data to pass
Speaker 2: through though. I mean, even at that point, right.
Speaker 4: For sure, Maria, it was still in the millions. So
Speaker 4: what we did is that we narrow it down even
Speaker 4: more and we concentrated only on conventional mortgages. And we
Speaker 4: also used other criteria like, for example, making sure that
Speaker 4: the loan was to buy a house, not as an investment,
Speaker 4: and we were only looking at loans that were either
Speaker 4: approved or rejected. But even with all of this, Maria,
Speaker 4: this left us still with four hundred thousand applications to analyze.
Speaker 2: All right, and so in your analysis, how did these
Speaker 2: lenders make their decisions?
Speaker 5: What did you find?
Speaker 4: Well, there is a few things they looked at. The
Speaker 4: first thing is something that is called the debt to
Speaker 4: income ratio, and this is basically how much money you
Speaker 4: make every month pursus how much money you need to
Speaker 4: pay for your debts. Because you know, you have credit
Speaker 4: card payments, you have rent, you have car insurance, all
Speaker 4: the things that you pay every month, and when you
Speaker 4: request a loan, your lender will check how much is
Speaker 4: your income every month and how much are these expenses.
Speaker 4: So when there is a big gap between the debt
Speaker 4: and the income. That's when loans were denied the most.
Speaker 4: But lenders are also checking other things like, for example,
Speaker 4: credit history, and also they are seeing if the applicant
Speaker 4: has co applicants, so if they're buying the house by
Speaker 4: themselves or with all the people supporting them.
Speaker 2: All right, already, ding ding ding. A flag is going
Speaker 2: up for me. Because you know, Latinos, we often do
Speaker 2: things as a family. A lot of us have non
Speaker 2: traditional forms of income. It makes it hard to build
Speaker 2: up credit. So I can see that this would raise
Speaker 2: some questions.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, Maria, I also have those questions. So we
Speaker 4: spoke with Amii Sin and she's a researcher with the
Speaker 4: House in Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, and
Speaker 4: she specializes in mortgage lending and she has a focus
Speaker 4: on racial equity. And this is what she told us
Speaker 4: about this.
Speaker 9: Our current underwriting system does a really poor job of
Speaker 9: accommodating for multiple incomes, particularly more than two incomes, and
Speaker 9: so that's a real issue as Latinos are more likely
Speaker 9: to live in multi generational households as well. Kind of
Speaker 9: on a similar vein Latino people are more likely than
Speaker 9: other racial and ethnic groups of people to have non
Speaker 9: traditional forms of income. They make up a disportionately high
Speaker 9: share of self employed individuals. They're more likely than others
Speaker 9: to engage in enterprising or informal work activity.
Speaker 2: So if you, for example, sell tamlis on the street
Speaker 2: for a living, or if you turn your art collective
Speaker 2: into a business like Juice Lean, or you make a
Speaker 2: lot of your money in cash, for example, you're going
Speaker 2: to have a harder time proving that you should qualify
Speaker 2: for a mortgage loan.
Speaker 4: Or even if you live with your parents and your siblings,
Speaker 4: but also with your Auela, with your grandma. And yet
Speaker 4: Maria Latina's really go after homeownership here is amlie Again.
Speaker 9: Latino households are more likely than others to be first
Speaker 9: time home buyers, and more likely to be the first
Speaker 9: in their family to buy a home. And so I
Speaker 9: think it's like, sometimes who do you turn to? I
Speaker 9: would think for myself, I'm not a homeowner, but if
Speaker 9: I were going to buy a home, I'd probably ask
Speaker 9: my parents, who are homeowners, a lot of questions about
Speaker 9: their process. What kind of bank to go to, what
Speaker 9: kind of lender to go to, what neighborhood should I
Speaker 9: look in that are in my price range. If you
Speaker 9: don't have somebody in your family that's a homeowner, or
Speaker 9: you don't know someone that's a homeowner, that can just
Speaker 9: be a barrier right there.
Speaker 2: All right, Penny, I know this is little nerdy, but
Speaker 2: how did the team actually do this data analysis?
Speaker 4: So I will say, yes, it was nerdy, it was complicated.
Speaker 4: So what we did is that we created some statistical
Speaker 4: models and we were considering all these issues that I
Speaker 4: have been explaining, like the differences in income and in debt,
Speaker 4: and these models gave us a clear picture of the
Speaker 4: relationship between the ethnicity of who is trying to get
Speaker 4: a house, who is trying to get a loan, and
Speaker 4: the chances that their application will be denied.
Speaker 2: Wow, and what about for Latinos whose loans did get approved?
Speaker 4: In that case, it's more likely, according to our that analysis,
Speaker 4: that they will pay higher interest rates on mortgagies than
Speaker 4: if a white person or a white family gets the loan.
Speaker 2: So that means that over time they'd actually be paying
Speaker 2: more for their loans and actually end up paying more
Speaker 2: for their house hopes. So this just speaks to the
Speaker 2: history of barriers to owning homes for black and brown communities.
Speaker 2: But now we actually have our own data, deep data
Speaker 2: that is proving this. So is anything being done to
Speaker 2: fix this now?
Speaker 4: Well, I will say the government has gotten involved in
Speaker 4: some instances in the past years. For example, we found
Speaker 4: multiple cases of lenders who were accused of redlining, but
Speaker 4: they didn't go to trial because what they did is
Speaker 4: that they reached multimillion dollar settlements with government regulators. So
Speaker 4: for example, Maria in twenty twenty two, a community bank
Speaker 4: in New Jersey named lake Land Bank settled for no
Speaker 4: less than thirteen million dollars.
Speaker 5: That's a pretty huge settlement.
Speaker 2: Thirteen million dollars, all right, But what about actually making
Speaker 2: the idea of owning a home more accessible, more equitable
Speaker 2: in general for Latinos.
Speaker 4: Well, there are some efforts towards that. So let's go
Speaker 4: back to New Jersey. That is our case study to
Speaker 4: see how we're focusing on New Jersey not just because
Speaker 4: that's where just link story takes place, but also because
Speaker 4: it can help us to understand what's going on in
Speaker 4: the rest of the country. In February of this year,
Speaker 4: the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, which is a
Speaker 4: research and advocacy group released at report, and the report
Speaker 4: confirms some of our findings. For example, it found that
Speaker 4: in New Jersey, if you are black or Latino, you
Speaker 4: only have less than fifty percent chance of owning a house,
Speaker 4: but if you're white, your chances grow to about seventy
Speaker 4: six percent. And even if you're able to own a
Speaker 4: home in New Jersey, you'll be paying a higher mortgage
Speaker 4: than almost anywhere else in the country. In May, the
Speaker 4: Washington Posts found that the average mortgage payment in New
Speaker 4: Jersey is close to twenty two hundred dollars. That's only
Speaker 4: second to Washington, DC, and the National Association of Realtors
Speaker 4: also found that in New Jersey, more than a third
Speaker 4: of Latino homeowners spent more than thirty percent of their
Speaker 4: income on housing. White borrowers, on the other hand, spent
Speaker 4: twenty seven percent on housing. As of last year, a
Speaker 4: record of over nine point five million Latinos in the
Speaker 4: US were homeowners, but if you compare that with over
Speaker 4: sixty million Latinos living here, well, is not a huge number.
Speaker 4: Just Lena and Martin are now part of this small group.
Speaker 4: Their first attempt wasn't successful, but they did not give
Speaker 4: up and in twenty twenty two, they finally bought a house.
Speaker 4: How did they do it? Two years ago they went
Speaker 4: to another bank and they applied for a loan to
Speaker 4: buy a house, But this time they were intentional about
Speaker 4: who they were asking for help. They felt that they
Speaker 4: needed to work with someone who would understand their situation
Speaker 4: and their finances.
Speaker 3: An accountant that I understand your story, I understand that
Speaker 3: you're from a different country, that I understand the effort
Speaker 3: that you know, like I've been in business for many years.
Speaker 3: But if you go and you present that to a bank,
Speaker 3: they will see you as a resource liability. Why is
Speaker 3: that because they don't know if next week I'm going
Speaker 3: to be making an income.
Speaker 4: So first Julis Lynn had a white accountant, but then
Speaker 4: she switched to another accountant that was a person of color.
Speaker 4: Her strategy paid off. She and her family were able
Speaker 4: to finally get the loan and they moved into their
Speaker 4: new home in Highland Park in April of two. Okay,
Speaker 4: Highland Park has a small town feel. You have local
Speaker 4: restaurants and shops lying in the main street, and it's
Speaker 4: definitely a community that embraces art. Just walking around a
Speaker 4: couple of blocks near Justling's home. We saw three murals
Speaker 4: painted on the sides of various buildings. The art, the greenery,
Speaker 4: the fact that New York City is only an hour
Speaker 4: away or fourty five minutes on a good day, are
Speaker 4: all white Juiceling loves living here. She doesn't mind that
Speaker 4: just under fifteen percent of the population our Latino. She says,
Speaker 4: She's here to stay.
Speaker 3: You know, when I see I don't really care. You're
Speaker 3: gonna see my pretty face whether you like it or not.
Speaker 4: But finally settling into Highland Park didn't mark the end
Speaker 4: of just Lyn and Martin's housing journey. They wanted to
Speaker 4: take his resk beyond just numbers on a page.
Speaker 3: At some point, your experience needs to make meaning for
Speaker 3: other people, because if you just swallow the pain and
Speaker 3: then you go about your business, nothing changes.
Speaker 4: Just Lean and Martin knew they had a strong story
Speaker 4: to tell, and they felt a sense of duty to
Speaker 4: share it.
Speaker 3: How you create harmony that eventually can make changes.
Speaker 4: They turned the rejection of a mortgage loan into an
Speaker 4: art installation. It was a collection of painter doors. Some
Speaker 4: were splattered designs and others were colored for shapes. Some
Speaker 4: had works written on them like if I own a home,
Speaker 4: did I make it in America? In October of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two or former senior producer Roxanne Scott met Martin
Speaker 4: at his gallery exhibition.
Speaker 6: So we're in standing in front of my art installation
Speaker 6: called thirty one South that involves eight doors which are
Speaker 6: painted with my artistic style and in them also contains
Speaker 6: the results of my data science research on home mortgage applications.
Speaker 4: The installation wasn't only visual, It also used audio that,
Speaker 4: as Martin explained to us, sonified the home mortgage data
Speaker 4: he pulled together.
Speaker 6: When the loan was denied, the sound of a door
Speaker 6: closing place, and when the loan was accepted, the sound
Speaker 6: of a door opening place.
Speaker 4: Martin shared why doors seemed like the natural element to
Speaker 4: convey their experience through this art installation.
Speaker 6: The concept of a door is very embedded in our
Speaker 6: culture as a symbol of opportunity, right we refer as
Speaker 6: someone to open the door for you into a new opportunity,
Speaker 6: and it occurred to me that using doors a symbol
Speaker 6: of opportunity into home ownership was a good way to
Speaker 6: combine the results of my data science project.
Speaker 4: While just Leen and Martin reconcile their situation through art.
Speaker 4: There have been also efforts to increase mortgage access in
Speaker 4: New Jersey through policy. The state past legislation last year
Speaker 4: to include a first generation component to their down payment
Speaker 4: assystem program and this is through the New Jersey Housing
Speaker 4: and Mortgage Finance Agency. So now first generation buyers can
Speaker 4: apply for an additional seven thousand dollars in down payments assistance,
Speaker 4: and that's on top of the fifteen thousand offer to
Speaker 4: first timers. We spoke with Melanie Walter, and she's the
Speaker 4: agency's executive director. We asked her how the new program
Speaker 4: is helping Latino residents in the state.
Speaker 10: Our down payment assistance program has seen a dramatic uptick
Speaker 10: in terms of our outreach within Latino communities. Our average
Speaker 10: borrower was a Hispanic single mom who worked as a
Speaker 10: nursery teacher in EMT right and was buying that home,
Speaker 10: so she and her kids had a wonderful place to live.
Speaker 10: So we're able to create access and we're seeing the
Speaker 10: effect of that.
Speaker 4: And according to Melanie, the program is already making a difference.
Speaker 10: When you ad that first generation component. We're actually seeing
Speaker 10: that thirty five to forty percent of our home buyers
Speaker 10: who are coming in the door are from Latino families.
Speaker 4: This June, we visited Juiseline again in her house in
Speaker 4: Highland Park. How how are you are you? As she
Speaker 4: shows us around the house, she stops along the way
Speaker 4: to point out different artwork and projects that she's working on.
Speaker 4: Dark colorful money Quin's cor were they leaves and flowers,
Speaker 4: and a garden where she's growing vegetables, and of course
Speaker 4: the two lips she's planted, something that has become a
Speaker 4: symbol of resilience for her. It's clear that Justlein fields
Speaker 4: at home here. Milena, her daughter does too.
Speaker 10: The first time I ever walked in, I was like,
Speaker 10: we did it finally.
Speaker 9: I remember I walked up to the stairs right over there,
Speaker 9: and I said, this is our property people.
Speaker 4: As I said before, Milena is twelve years old now,
Speaker 4: and she's old enough to be allowed to walk along
Speaker 4: just down the street to the local Greek coffee shop.
Speaker 4: It's a safety that they were not afforded in their
Speaker 4: previous home, where the newest cafe was a twenty minute
Speaker 4: walk away or Lead producer Norsodi took a walk around
Speaker 4: with just Lean.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's a Annican does the fairy apply for Milena.
Speaker 3: She comes here, she had her little poetry and she
Speaker 3: drinks coffee and then she feels so, you know, like
Speaker 3: it dependent because she got to do that. And you know,
Speaker 3: like sometimes I keep an eye on hair on her
Speaker 3: and I see her that she's writing and drawing.
Speaker 4: And also it makes me.
Speaker 3: Feel proud, you know what.
Speaker 4: We go inside the Greek cafe and old timey music
Speaker 4: is plain what.
Speaker 7: I like about this space.
Speaker 4: I really like that the owner recognized this lean and
Speaker 4: the greetish other. A few people are seated by the
Speaker 4: tables and they're enjoying coffee and pastries from the bakery.
Speaker 6: It's a small family business. I come from Greece.
Speaker 5: I'm not a US permanent residence.
Speaker 4: We talked to Taki, the owner's brother.
Speaker 5: Where did you come from? Originally he was.
Speaker 3: Born here, but I grew up in Argentina.
Speaker 10: Argentina.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So if I go and turn the music or I
Speaker 3: can picture, you can dance. Yeah, I would. That's the
Speaker 3: tangle with you.
Speaker 4: Julyne also makes an effort to be involved in the community.
Speaker 4: Walking around the neighborhood, she shows us some of the
Speaker 4: places in her community where she's made her mark, like
Speaker 4: planting flowers along the sidewalk, So I.
Speaker 3: Think that the one is the one that I planted.
Speaker 4: She points out to a big cement planter where orange
Speaker 4: leafy flowers are growing in the soil a small white
Speaker 4: signed weeds planted with care by Juelin Daniel. Back at
Speaker 4: her house, Justlyn shows us her outdoor studio in the backyard.
Speaker 4: They are broken shorts of glass compiled in a plastic band,
Speaker 4: and they are to be used for her next HOURT project.
Speaker 3: So I'm a psychotherapist and I'm an our therapist. So
Speaker 3: in a way, this is what I do. You know, like,
Speaker 3: this is one my job is, Like I don't usually
Speaker 3: don't get a full piece. I get a broken piece
Speaker 3: of a person that comes with a story. And then
Speaker 3: you know, like this doesn't serve them anymore, even if
Speaker 3: they want to keep it, So they need to sort
Speaker 3: of cut the leash. So part of what I do
Speaker 3: is cutting the leash by changing their narrative. And you
Speaker 3: change the narrative by breaking the pieces and then arranging
Speaker 3: the pieces in a way that either make fun, makes
Speaker 3: you laugh, or you can get a life lesson in
Speaker 3: a way that it becomes healing.
Speaker 4: While we shot with just Lean Milena goes inside the house.
Speaker 4: Maybe she's doing homework, or she's scrolling photos or videos
Speaker 4: on her Mom's fine. Whatever she's doing, she's in a
Speaker 4: safe place, the place just Lean dreamed.
Speaker 3: For her daughter. She calls Highlam Park her little town.
Speaker 3: And that's beautiful.
Speaker 4: And I wonder, just as Martin and just Lean asked
Speaker 4: in the art installation of the doors, those owning this
Speaker 4: house mean they made it in America.
Speaker 2: The Mortgage Wall is an original production of Futuro Investigates
Speaker 2: in collaboration with Latino USA. This episode was reported by
Speaker 2: Penni Le Ramidez, who's also our co executive producer of
Speaker 2: Futuro Investigates and Latino USA. Our the producer is North Saudi,
Speaker 2: Elan Ireland, Roxanne Scott and our associate producer Roxanna Guire
Speaker 2: also contributed reporting to this investigation. Data analysis was done
Speaker 2: by Jeremy Singer Vine. This episode was edited by Andrea
Speaker 2: Lopez Gruzsado, Scoring and sound designed by Jacob Rossari. It
Speaker 2: was mixed by Stephanie Lebau and Julia Caruso. To find
Speaker 2: out more information about The Mortgage Wall and read our
Speaker 2: web article, visit Futuro Investigates.
Speaker 5: Dot org.
Speaker 2: Again, that's Futudo Investigates dot Org. The Latino USA team
Speaker 2: also includes Vittoria Estrada, Jessica Ellis Rinaldo, Leans, Junior Drodi,
Speaker 2: mad Marquis Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, and Nancy Trujillo.
Speaker 5: Our marketing manager is Luis Luna.
Speaker 2: I'm Maria Ojosa, your host and co executive producer, and
Speaker 2: I'll see you on our next episode. And remember, as
Speaker 2: I say not Tevayes Joe.
Speaker 7: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Geraldine R.
Speaker 4: Dodge Foundation, working toward a just, an equitable New Jersey. W. K.
Speaker 4: Kellogg Foundation, a partner with Communities where Children Come First,
Speaker 4: and the Tao Foundation,