[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19600-19601]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                             HOMEOWNERSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Loretta Sanchez) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
highlight an issue that is incredibly important. It is probably the 
number one issue going on in my district today. And that is the whole 
issue of housing: housing, and the opportunity to own your own home, to 
provide a safe haven for your family, to build wealth.
  You see, owning your own home for almost everybody in our country is 
the first rung of the ladder of wealth creation. Yet today, that 
dream--and it is a dream for many of our citizens, particularly those 
in the Latino and minority communities--is just that, a dream. Latinos, 
like all Americans, are committed to building a better and stronger 
future for their families and for their communities. It starts by 
becoming a homeowner, to own a piece of America, to have a real stake 
in America.
  That is one of the reasons homeownership is so important. It is 
important because it creates wealth--as I said, the first rung on the 
ladder for people to have an investment. It creates social stability. 
It creates a haven for the family, for family get-togethers. A home is 
really one of the most important assets for a family to have. Owning a 
home has far-reaching consequences in our economy for communities.
  This fall, I had the opportunity to be a keynote speaker at a 
bipartisan leadership forum on achieving the American Dream, hosted by 
First American Financial Corporation, who is headquartered in my 
district. I was joined by many of my colleagues, including 
Representative Linda Sanchez, Representative Emanuel Cleaver, former 
Governor Luis Fortuno, industry leaders, and community activists.
  The decision to become a homeowner is one of the most important 
decisions, and it commits a person. It commits a family. It commits us 
towards getting to the middle class. For people in the bottom 40 
percent of annual income level, wealth creation is almost exclusively 
in homeownership.
  According to the National Association of Home Builders, ``the primary

[[Page 19601]]

residence represents the largest asset category'' in our country, 
accounting for 30 percent of our Nation's total assets. The importance 
of homeownership is even greater for the middle class: 62 percent of 
the median homeowner's assets and 42 percent of their total wealth lies 
in their home.
  Not to mention that access to home equity, being able to pull out 
some of that equity you have built up, provides families with financial 
stability when there are financial stresses going on in the family. It 
is an emergency fund in some cases, and it helps to start a business, 
it helps to fund college for our children. Homeownership is a key to 
creating stable, economically successful households and to provide 
security for existing and future generations.
  Households with wealth are able to weather financial shocks and 
increase upward economic mobility for themselves and for future 
generations. In fact, analysis provided by First American's Chief 
Economist, Mark Fleming, highlighted homeownership trends based on 
household formation rates among Latino and African American 
Communities. The research identified the importance of homeownership-
based wealth formation as the key, the key to wealth creation for 
middle- and low-income Americans. Providing Americans with equal 
opportunity to pursue that homeownership is a challenge, and it is very 
challenging in the Latino, African American, and other minority 
communities.
  This last recession of 5 or 6 years--this really terrible, difficult 
recession for so many people--saw in the Latino community two-thirds, 
66 percent, of the wealth across our Nation within the Latino community 
went away.
  I hope that my colleagues will help us in building back to 
homeownership for all of our communities in America.

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