Minorities struggle to find affordable housing in Des Moines. | Pixabay
Minorities struggle to find affordable housing in Des Moines. | Pixabay
Remnants of the long-banned practice of redlining is among the reasons many minorities are having difficulty accessing affordable housing in Des Moines, according to officials.
“That’s a big racist housing policy from our past, from a federal level,” Kendyl Larson, the director of research and planning at the Polk County Housing Trust Fund, said in a recent webinar hosted by Iowa Commission of Latino Affairs, as reported by Iowa Public Radio. “And I mean the impact that it’s had on our communities of color are significant and you can see the legacy of those impacts today.”
While the discriminatory practice of refusing or limiting housing loans within specific geographical areas was banned more than half a century ago, the webinar discussed that the current practice of contract housing/land sales in which buyers enter into complicated rent-to-own agreements is also playing a role in housing affordability.
Other reasons minorities are currently struggling to find affordable housing include Iowa lacking adequate funding and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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