The Mortgage Wall

Fulturo investigates Investia.

Housing as a standalone issue is now one of the top five concerns for Latino voters, and that's the first time this has happened in an election cycle. But as housing costs and mortgage rates in the country continue to increase, the dream of owning and affording a home is becoming more and more elusive.

I already been preparing for this moment. I brought all the paperwork, my credit score, my list of liabilities, my employment history, the information regarding my business.

That's Juscelyn Danielle. She's Argentinian and Haitian, and like many immigrants, she's many things. She's a licensed clinical social worker, she founded her own psychotherapy practice, and she's also an artist, which influences everything she does. Juselene, who's based in New Jersey, said she spent years saving money and building her credit and making sure all of her paperwork was in order

When we went to the mortgage officer, this was the first question that he asked, was your zip code?

I knew that's something I was wrong.

This question about her zip code set off alarm bells for Jusselyn, who knew that historically, people living in predominantly black and Latino Latina LATINX communities had a harder time getting bank loans. It's a practice known as redlining, and even though it was outlawed more than fifty years ago, it continues to drive inequities in mortgage lending today.

A black woman with an accent and a Latino guy with an accent. This is the textbook discrimination.

From Futro Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria Rosa. Today is part of our elections series The Latino Factor, How We Vote. We dive into the disparities that make it harder for Latinos and Latinas to overcome the mortgage wall. Juslen's experience, which we heard at the top of the show, is far from unique, and there's vast data to prove that,

Well, we first started looking into this mortgage data after we learned about what happened to Justlyan, but also happened to you know, her daughter, Milena, and to Milena's father, Martin Calvino. And Martin is from Why. He's a multimedia artist and he's also a data scientist, and after they were rejected in twenty twenty one from even applying for a loan, Martin was convinced that certain lenders in New Jersey were more likely to reject Latino borrowers more than white applicants.

Okay, so how did you go about determining if Martin's suspicions were true?

Well, Maria, we had a data journalist and we did our own extensive analysis using this public information, and it took us several months. We analyzed hundreds of thousands of mortgage applications filed in New Jersey from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two, and we focused on conventional mortgages because these are the luans that are offered by private companies.

So the data was already public, but someone actually has to pull it together and make sense of it all.

So what did you end up finding?

So we found that Latinos were more likely to be rejected than white applicants. And this was not just in one bank or in one city. This was the case across financial institutions in New Jersey and Maria. To make things even worse, those Latinos who get a mortgage loan paid higher interest rates than their fellow white borrowers, even on similar mortgages.

And dear listener, what this disparity shows us is that there are deep systemic barriers to home ownership for Latinos and latinos in this country, whether it's access to credit, not being able to make enough of a down payment, or not even being in the right zip code, as we heard from Juicelyn at the top of our show.

Yes, and that's interesting because the An Institute, which is a think tank in Washington that does economic and social policy research, is projecting the Latinos hear this will make up seventy percent of first time home buyers in the next twenty years.

Wow, that is an extraordinary number.

Latinos making up seventy percent of first time home buyers in the next twenty years.

I mean that's.

Huge, So, dear listener, let's really attempt to understand what these lending disparities in New Jersey show us about the future of home ownership for Latinos in this country, especially as housing access continues to be a growing concern nationwide in this election year. And we're going to start in Highland Park, which is a small town in New Jersey where Juslyn lives.

Now.

Benny Lay and a team of our producers for visited her in her home in November of twenty twenty three. Okay, Penny Ley, with all of that background, I think we're ready now, So why don't you take us to your reporting in Highland Park, New Jersey.

We're visiting just Lean on a cool fall morning, and the wide tree lined street she lives on is quiet. Her house is two stories. It sits on the corner with a big lown in front and steps leading up to a Porsche. It's painting in a muted blue collar and it has white trim around the windows and edges. Are you I mean.

Space?

Fine? Just Lean takes us throughout the side door, which is where her office is located, and it's separated from the rest of the home that's where she plans out her art projects. As soon as you walk in, you can tell a visual artist lives here. The room is full of color. One corner is filled with green plants and framed artwork lines the soft blue walls. JUSTLYNI is fifty years old, and she has this bibrant voice but a quiet presence with a bright and big smile.

So sometimes we get very attached to things, but then eventually you will have to release them and let them go as it becomes something else.

Today she's wearing a light pink sweater with a rhyin stone ball on the front, and her dark hair is a style in a long braid, and she twisted red and pink flowers in it. We're visiting just Lean two years after she and Martin bought this house, but getting here though to way longer than that.

I've been moving from place to place from Queens, Flashing Lumber and Spring Lake. I think I have multi in my whole life at least fifty times.

Juselyn remembers that in one occasion, she was removed overnight from an apartment that she was ranting in Queens, New York, and it was because the landlord decided that she needed the space for her relatives.

And I was like, but I already pay the rent and I have all the things, and I had to go to work and I had to go to school. And she was like, I'm sorry, but you know, like my family coming in that you cannot come back.

Her experience highlights a common issue for many renters. Things can just get too unpredictable. And there is of course the rising cause of rent, which is a problem nationwide. More than half Latino renters in the US say they spend more than a third of their income on rent. And this election year, Paul's show is the economy that is concerning Latino voters the most, and of course housing is a big part of that. California is probably the first place that comes to mind when we talk about

They wake up, they go off and they get a coffee, and that coffee used to be probably four or five dollars and now it's seven. They work at their job which has not increased their wages, and then when they go to the grocery store that night to get food for their family, they see the price of milk has increased and they go home and they worry about rent. And so when we talk about the economy, we use indicators like the market, but we don't use indicators like individual sentiment of the consumer.

What team told us echoes what Unidos US, which is another advocacy organization in DC, founding a study that is that in this election year, Latinos want their policymakers to prioritize addressing the cause of living and the housing prices.

And so it makes us election even more critical this year of ensuring that the folks that were electing and the folks that were putting in the office care about these things.

And as Latinos faced multiple economic burdens, many of them still dream of owning their home. Onido's US found that sixty five percent of Latino renters want to buy a house but have not been able to After renting in Queens for a while, Justlyne eventually made them move to

So for me, when I have my daughter, there was no question about it, like I was going to give that stability to her.

Just Lyn remembers the moment when she decided that it was about time to take the big step. It was December twenty nineteen. She was renting a place in Highland Park, not too far from where she lives.

Down the moment that I decided that I was going to get the home is like my previous landlord, I planted a tulip in my backyard and she went outside and she took it out and she threw her in the garage.

What so No, by the moment that I decided that.

I ron my home, Wow, yeah, a.

Tu live in the garbage just because the landlord didn't like it. This singular moment was pivotal in just Lyn's life.

Flowers helped me to think about the nature of existence.

Gulyn just loved flowers. She incorporates flowers in almost all her projects. Seeing the landlord throw away the tulip she planted was the final extra for her and for Martin, So they started getting ready. Justlyne prepared all her paperwork and her savings. She learned all about the buying process, and less than two years later, just Lene, Martin and their daughter Milena made the trip to that bank investor's bank in Somerset, New Jersey, and they were ready to

So we get into the branch and I had to describe it like he was a guy in his late sixties, blue eyes, white American, and he goes like, hey, hi, guys, how are you And he did the fist pump to me at the fish.

But it was the mortgage officer's second question that to just Lyn and her family back. It was when he asked about their zip code. What did you think at that moment that that was.

A red black Because I did the real stare course, so I really knew about red lining. Why is it like a certain segment of the population can access on in the home. How is it that we got to be where we are so part of the course that I have been taken involved all of these.

Again, when just lindsays redlining, she's referring to this old practice of banks deny it loans to black and Latino families and effectively preventing them from buying into certain neighborhoods. In nineteen sixty eight, the Third Housing Act banned redlining to end this racial discrimination.

Now with this bill, the voice of Justice speaks again. It proclaims that fair housing for all all human beings who live in this country is now a part of the American way of life.

But several investigations, including ours for this story, show how the practice is still very much alivee After the mortgage officer asked Justlyn about her zip code, he started questioning Martin's employment. Martin was said to begin a job just a couple of months later, and it was at Rodgers University, which is one of the top public research schools in the entire country. But according to Justlyn, the mortgage officer went after that.

The fact that he had started the job and the fact that he didn't have employment history. Even though we were telling him that we were business owners and we were working together.

In two thousand and seven, Justlyn founded her psychotherapy practice and her art collective, which is called Nice to Meet You, is also an LLC, so they have plenty of ways to demonstrate their family income. But despite this, just Lin says that things with the law an officer just continued to spiral downwards.

He did at Runner Credit Escort, and he didn't verify any of the paperwork that we had.

So you were rejected even before applying.

Absolutely, he never put any information in a system, in a computer or anything like just to get us on sort of data to compare our qualifications to anything, to any standard that they might have at the bank.

Since then, the bank was acquired by Citizens Financial Group, and we tried to contact this new bank, but the spokesperson said the company could not comment on just Lin's case because it predated the acquisition of Investors Bank. They told us that they were committed to quote creating an inclusive culture for their customers. You should know that just

My mommy white, she's blonde, she has green eyes. So I clearly remember like one time we went to get ice cream and a lady that was sitting next to her said like, Linda Nete, oh you have two beautiful little black kids.

Where did you get them from?

So you know, like, I'm not putting up with any of these anymore, not at this age when I already know the laws. I'm not going to tolerate it, and I'm going to do something about it.

And she did. After leaving the bank where she had hoped to start the process of buying a home, just Lean filed a complaint. She did it with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office with a division on civil rights. She said. She followed up with a claim for two years, and then she became accested with the process. There were just too many documents to submit and she ended up

He spent hours like on the computers, you know, like Jesse, going through it, like creating different things to be able to tell the data.

Martin's research led him to believe that certain lenders in the state of New Jersey were more likely to reject Latino burrowers than white applicants. Martin first reached out to us Abuduo Investigates in twenty twenty two to share what he found. We were deeply interested in his research, but we also needed to analyze the mortgage data in New Jersey ourselves, so we went to the same public database that our team us and we spent months doing our

Coming up on Latino USA, we dive into our data analysis, which proves that New Jersey's disparities in home ownership make it one of the most inequitable states in the country. Stay with us, hey, we're back, and before the break, we shared Juicelyne's story and we heard from Benny Lay about the findings of our investigation. Our data analysis confirmed juicelyn and Martine's suspicions that Latinos like them, like me, and like many of you listening today, were denied home

Well, Maria, the reason why it took us several months to analyze this mortgage data is because we were looking at five years worth of raw information. So as our first step, we filtered the decisions and we focused only on New Jersey.

That would still leave a lot of data to pass through though. I mean, even at that point, right.

For sure, Maria, it was still in the millions. So what we did is that we narrow it down even more and we concentrated only on conventional mortgages. And we also used other criteria like, for example, making sure that the loan was to buy a house, not as an investment, and we were only looking at loans that were either approved or rejected. But even with all of this, Maria, this left us still with four hundred thousand applications to analyze.

All right, and so in your analysis, how did these lenders make their decisions?

What did you find?

Well, there is a few things they looked at. The first thing is something that is called the debt to income ratio, and this is basically how much money you make every month pursus how much money you need to pay for your debts. Because you know, you have credit card payments, you have rent, you have car insurance, all the things that you pay every month, and when you request a loan, your lender will check how much is your income every month and how much are these expenses.

All right, already, ding ding ding. A flag is going up for me. Because you know, Latinos, we often do things as a family. A lot of us have non traditional forms of income. It makes it hard to build up credit. So I can see that this would raise some questions.

Yes, exactly, Maria, I also have those questions. So we spoke with Amii Sin and she's a researcher with the House in Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, and she specializes in mortgage lending and she has a focus on racial equity. And this is what she told us about this.

Our current underwriting system does a really poor job of accommodating for multiple incomes, particularly more than two incomes, and so that's a real issue as Latinos are more likely to live in multi generational households as well. Kind of on a similar vein Latino people are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups of people to have non traditional forms of income. They make up a disportionately high

So if you, for example, sell tamlis on the street for a living, or if you turn your art collective into a business like Juice Lean, or you make a lot of your money in cash, for example, you're going to have a harder time proving that you should qualify for a mortgage loan.

Or even if you live with your parents and your siblings, but also with your Auela, with your grandma. And yet Maria Latina's really go after homeownership here is amlie Again.

Latino households are more likely than others to be first time home buyers, and more likely to be the first in their family to buy a home. And so I think it's like, sometimes who do you turn to? I would think for myself, I'm not a homeowner, but if I were going to buy a home, I'd probably ask my parents, who are homeowners, a lot of questions about their process. What kind of bank to go to, what kind of lender to go to, what neighborhood should I

All right, Penny, I know this is little nerdy, but how did the team actually do this data analysis?

So I will say, yes, it was nerdy, it was complicated. So what we did is that we created some statistical models and we were considering all these issues that I have been explaining, like the differences in income and in debt, and these models gave us a clear picture of the relationship between the ethnicity of who is trying to get a house, who is trying to get a loan, and the chances that their application will be denied.

Wow, and what about for Latinos whose loans did get approved?

In that case, it's more likely, according to our that analysis, that they will pay higher interest rates on mortgagies than if a white person or a white family gets the loan.

So that means that over time they'd actually be paying more for their loans and actually end up paying more for their house hopes. So this just speaks to the history of barriers to owning homes for black and brown communities. But now we actually have our own data, deep data that is proving this. So is anything being done to fix this now?

Well, I will say the government has gotten involved in some instances in the past years. For example, we found multiple cases of lenders who were accused of redlining, but they didn't go to trial because what they did is that they reached multimillion dollar settlements with government regulators. So for example, Maria in twenty twenty two, a community bank in New Jersey named lake Land Bank settled for no less than thirteen million dollars.

That's a pretty huge settlement.

Thirteen million dollars, all right, But what about actually making the idea of owning a home more accessible, more equitable in general for Latinos.

Well, there are some efforts towards that. So let's go back to New Jersey. That is our case study to see how we're focusing on New Jersey not just because that's where just link story takes place, but also because it can help us to understand what's going on in the rest of the country. In February of this year, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, which is a research and advocacy group released at report, and the report

An accountant that I understand your story, I understand that you're from a different country, that I understand the effort that you know, like I've been in business for many years. But if you go and you present that to a bank, they will see you as a resource liability. Why is that because they don't know if next week I'm going to be making an income.

So first Julis Lynn had a white accountant, but then she switched to another accountant that was a person of color. Her strategy paid off. She and her family were able to finally get the loan and they moved into their new home in Highland Park in April of two. Okay, Highland Park has a small town feel. You have local restaurants and shops lying in the main street, and it's definitely a community that embraces art. Just walking around a couple of blocks near Justling's home. We saw three murals

You know, when I see I don't really care. You're gonna see my pretty face whether you like it or not.

But finally settling into Highland Park didn't mark the end of just Lyn and Martin's housing journey. They wanted to take his resk beyond just numbers on a page.

At some point, your experience needs to make meaning for other people, because if you just swallow the pain and then you go about your business, nothing changes.

Just Lean and Martin knew they had a strong story to tell, and they felt a sense of duty to share it.

How you create harmony that eventually can make changes.

They turned the rejection of a mortgage loan into an art installation. It was a collection of painter doors. Some were splattered designs and others were colored for shapes. Some had works written on them like if I own a home, did I make it in America? In October of twenty twenty two or former senior producer Roxanne Scott met Martin at his gallery exhibition.

So we're in standing in front of my art installation called thirty one South that involves eight doors which are painted with my artistic style and in them also contains the results of my data science research on home mortgage applications.

The installation wasn't only visual, It also used audio that, as Martin explained to us, sonified the home mortgage data he pulled together.

When the loan was denied, the sound of a door closing place, and when the loan was accepted, the sound of a door opening place.

Martin shared why doors seemed like the natural element to convey their experience through this art installation.

The concept of a door is very embedded in our culture as a symbol of opportunity, right we refer as someone to open the door for you into a new opportunity, and it occurred to me that using doors a symbol of opportunity into home ownership was a good way to combine the results of my data science project.

While just Leen and Martin reconcile their situation through art. There have been also efforts to increase mortgage access in New Jersey through policy. The state past legislation last year to include a first generation component to their down payment assystem program and this is through the New Jersey Housing

Our down payment assistance program has seen a dramatic uptick in terms of our outreach within Latino communities. Our average borrower was a Hispanic single mom who worked as a nursery teacher in EMT right and was buying that home, so she and her kids had a wonderful place to live. So we're able to create access and we're seeing the effect of that.

And according to Melanie, the program is already making a difference.

When you ad that first generation component. We're actually seeing that thirty five to forty percent of our home buyers who are coming in the door are from Latino families.

This June, we visited Juiseline again in her house in Highland Park. How how are you are you? As she shows us around the house, she stops along the way to point out different artwork and projects that she's working on. Dark colorful money Quin's cor were they leaves and flowers, and a garden where she's growing vegetables, and of course the two lips she's planted, something that has become a symbol of resilience for her. It's clear that Justlein fields

The first time I ever walked in, I was like, we did it finally.

I remember I walked up to the stairs right over there, and I said, this is our property people.

As I said before, Milena is twelve years old now, and she's old enough to be allowed to walk along just down the street to the local Greek coffee shop. It's a safety that they were not afforded in their previous home, where the newest cafe was a twenty minute walk away or Lead producer Norsodi took a walk around with just Lean.

Okay, so that's a Annican does the fairy apply for Milena. She comes here, she had her little poetry and she drinks coffee and then she feels so, you know, like it dependent because she got to do that. And you know, like sometimes I keep an eye on hair on her and I see her that she's writing and drawing.

And also it makes me.

Feel proud, you know what.

We go inside the Greek cafe and old timey music is plain what.

I like about this space.

I really like that the owner recognized this lean and the greetish other. A few people are seated by the tables and they're enjoying coffee and pastries from the bakery.

It's a small family business. I come from Greece.

I'm not a US permanent residence.

We talked to Taki, the owner's brother.

Where did you come from? Originally he was.

Born here, but I grew up in Argentina.

Argentina.

Yeah.

So if I go and turn the music or I can picture, you can dance. Yeah, I would. That's the tangle with you.

Julyne also makes an effort to be involved in the community. Walking around the neighborhood, she shows us some of the places in her community where she's made her mark, like planting flowers along the sidewalk, So I.

Think that the one is the one that I planted.

She points out to a big cement planter where orange leafy flowers are growing in the soil a small white signed weeds planted with care by Juelin Daniel. Back at her house, Justlyn shows us her outdoor studio in the backyard. They are broken shorts of glass compiled in a plastic band, and they are to be used for her next HOURT project.

So I'm a psychotherapist and I'm an our therapist. So in a way, this is what I do. You know, like, this is one my job is, Like I don't usually don't get a full piece. I get a broken piece of a person that comes with a story. And then you know, like this doesn't serve them anymore, even if they want to keep it, So they need to sort of cut the leash. So part of what I do

While we shot with just Lean Milena goes inside the house. Maybe she's doing homework, or she's scrolling photos or videos on her Mom's fine. Whatever she's doing, she's in a safe place, the place just Lean dreamed.

For her daughter. She calls Highlam Park her little town. And that's beautiful.

And I wonder, just as Martin and just Lean asked in the art installation of the doors, those owning this house mean they made it in America.

The Mortgage Wall is an original production of Futuro Investigates in collaboration with Latino USA. This episode was reported by Penni Le Ramidez, who's also our co executive producer of Futuro Investigates and Latino USA. Our the producer is North Saudi, Elan Ireland, Roxanne Scott and our associate producer Roxanna Guire also contributed reporting to this investigation. Data analysis was done by Jeremy Singer Vine. This episode was edited by Andrea

Dot org.

Again, that's Futudo Investigates dot Org. The Latino USA team also includes Vittoria Estrada, Jessica Ellis Rinaldo, Leans, Junior Drodi, mad Marquis Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, and Nancy Trujillo.

Our marketing manager is Luis Luna.

I'm Maria Ojosa, your host and co executive producer, and I'll see you on our next episode. And remember, as I say not Tevayes Joe.

Latino USA is made possible in part by the Geraldine R.

Dodge Foundation, working toward a just, an equitable New Jersey. W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner with Communities where Children Come First, and the Tao Foundation,