Monica Potts on how homeownership programs that focus on financial literacy can still serve as a means to build assets for low-income families:
Popular narratives hold that lower-income families rushing into expanding homeownership with unusually huge mortgages helped cause the financial crisis, but the real cause was the financial products many families bought. It wasn’t just low-income families; middle- and upper-middle-class homeowners were lured into less-than-ideal mortgages as well. The problem wasn’t one of poverty, but one of financial literacy. The best homeownership programs for lower-income families tackled that problem. Those families are still in their homes, and show that the type of financial homeownership programs can still serve as a way to build assets for low-income families.