Down-payment programs help Colorado’s Black first-time homebuyers in push to close historic equity gaps

Nahjee Maybin feels fortunate to be fulfilling the American dream of graduating college, landing employment and saving enough money to buy a first home for his family — particularly when he considers the myriad ways government and society historically hindered Black Americans’ home ownership prospects.

The U.S. homeownership rate has inched upward over the past decade, from 64.7% of homes occupied by their owners in 2011 to 65.5% in 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors. But Black homeownership rates have lagged significantly behind. Colorado’s white homeownership rate sits around 70% compared to a 42% Black homeownership rate, according to a March report from the National Association of Realtors.

Racist policies like redlining across the nation and in Colorado created generational barriers to homebuying for Black families with ripple effects that still exist today. Redlining is a discriminatory practice dating to the 1930s in which federal programs providing government-insured mortgages for homeowners shirked giving aid in neighborhoods where property values were most likely to decrease — largely low-income areas where people of color lived.

“It’s crazy to see how many things have allowed that gap to increase,” Maybin said. “It wasn’t even that long ago when this was happening, and I think a lot of people still aren’t aware.”

The 31-year-old and his wife, who have three children, were able to buy a home in Aurora with the help of two Denver-area programs: the Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth and FirstBank’s Providing Access to Homeownership fund. Both programs offer Black first-time homebuyers in Colorado thousands of dollars in down-payment assistance in an effort to help correct the equity gaps that hinder Black homeownership.

White households hold 87% of overall wealth in the United States while accounting for 68% of the nation’s households, according to Federal Reserve data. Comparatively, Black households hold 3% of the country’s wealth while accounting for 16% of the U.S. population.

“We know that’s due, in part, to historic housing discrimination, particularly redlining and the ramifications that have resulted as a result of federal housing policy that prevented Black and African American families from amassing wealth and being able to transfer it to the next generation,” said Aisha T. Weeks, managing director of the Denver-based Dearfield Fund.

“The system was never designed for us to be successful, so understanding how to navigate that world is so critically important to the successful building of wealth over time,” she said, “so we’re lifting the veil.”

“We’ll build our own”

A month ago, Lakewood-based FirstBank received a $1 million grant from the Colorado Health Foundation to continue funding its 2-year-old Providing Access to Homeownership, or PATH, grant program.

FirstBank, in partnership with the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and the Impact Development Fund, created the PATH grant program to help cover down payment and closing costs for Black first-time homebuyers in the state with no expectation of repayment.

The bank and the state Housing and Finance Authority have given more than $2.6 million to fund the grants, propelling 160 Black families into their first homes. The $1 million grant from the Colorado Health Foundation is expected to help welcome another 100 Black families into their new homes.

Greg Shields, senior vice president at FirstBank, works with PATH clients as a lender. As a Black man in the banking industry, Shields said working with PATH recipients has been the highlight of his career.

“It’s one thing to do an investment property for someone with five or six homes, but when you get someone with their first home and seeing that level of pride and excitement, it makes my job worth coming to,” Shields said.

People in the program still have to qualify for the loan, but when they do, PATH kicks in a $10,000 grant toward the homebuyers’ down payment.

To qualify, Black or African American recipients must be first-time homebuyers — although exceptions exist if the home isn’t the buyers’ first — for a property that will be their primary residence with a mortgage through FirstBank.

From Shields’ years of experience in lending, he said it’s evident that barriers like redlining and gentrification still have lingering impacts on his clients. Because generations of families often have been hamstrung by these systemic restrictions, sometimes clients come to Shields with a lack of financial literacy, misconceptions about the homebuying industry or distrust after hearing about or directly experiencing racism in the industry.

Coloradans may not see many advertisements for the program, Shields said, because it spreads through word-of-mouth among networks of Black real estate agents, lenders, former recipients and their allies.

“Have I dealt with racism? Yes.”

About 70% of April Denmon’s real estate clients are Black.

“I will always fight for us, and I will always tell people if we’re not welcome at their table, we’ll build our own,” Denmon said.