The wealth gap and an individual's access to housing, in a way, work interchangeably. Without having the money to support oneself, a person cannot buy/rent a house and, without property to hold, it is difficult to build long lasting credit and wealth. It’s a never-ending cycle that has been proven difficult to break from for the majority of South Floridians. In the U.S, history has not permitted many ethnic Americans the opportunity to create long-lasting generational wealth and the wealth gap is currently wider than it's ever been.
For an area such as South Florida, which is made up of the ethnic majority, the current 2022 renting/housing issue is a real-world example of how the wealth gap [and your status] affects an individual's housing accessibility.
The average Hispanic and Black household in the U.S earns half as much as the median White household, thus only owns about 15-20% as much net wealth (Aladangady & Forde, 2021).
Without the ability to enter the housing market with long-standing, reliable credit or a financial safety-net, many families have found themself struggling to either find housing or keep up with the financial demand most landlords call for. In fact, close to 2 million Florida residents pay more than 30% of their total household income just on housing and the majority of median-priced homes in Florida are not affordably available for medium and high-skilled workers (FL Coalition, 2019). This calculation is actually considered the maximum amount of spending necessary for Florida housing to be considered affordable.
TERMS TO KNOW
Generational Wealth: Financial assets passed by one generation of a family to another.
Wealth Gap: A split in earnings and assets between two social groups calculated by a person net worth
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For many Floridan's, this price is considered detrimentally costly to their immediate income, yet there is nothing homeowners/renters can do without risking eviction or debt. The need to pay so much out of owns income just to keep a roof over their family's head is what restricts these individuals from building generational wealth.
This is how the wealth gap comes into play because, as we seen before, this cycle works under the idea of “You either have it, or You don’t” because either you have a comfortable income to pay for housing [and build wealth] or you do not thus stay on the lower end of the gap.
In this oral history project, we will break down this vicious cycle through the three different perspectives of the individuals we interviewed during September/October 2022. We hope to shed lighter on the effects of the wealth gap and how the younger generations can work to possibly break this cycle.
CLICK HERE TO Read David Ebanks, Opportunity through Homeownership.