Black Home Initiative

Creating change and opportunity for new Black Homeowners in the South Seattle, South King and North Pierce Counties.

What is Black Home Initiative?

Black Home Initiative (BHI) is a new regional effort that seeks to target the racial inequities at the core of the housing ecosystem in an effort to increase homeownership among Black households.

Learn more ➞

Photo by Bill Wright

history

Discriminatory housing practices such as redlining and racially restrictive covenants have a long history in the Seattle-Tacoma region.

Their harmful impacts have been exacerbated by the current shortage of affordable housing and our area's red-hot growth. Today’s homeownership gap directly reflects the persistence of this systemic discrimination.

Tacoma data: U.S. Census, American Community Survey (2015-2019 PUMS data set). Seattle data: The Racial Wealth Divide in Seattle (2021 scorecard data). Retrieved from www.prosperitynow.org.

BHI partner highlight

HomeSight

HomeSight, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and Community Development Corporation (CDC), has worked to preserve and enhance economically and culturally diverse communities throughout Washington, and especially in our home community of southeast Seattle. HomeSight reaches these stakeholders through homeownership initiatives, small business development and community advocacy.

WHAT OUR COMMUNITY members ARE SAYING

Quotes

“As a community, we unfortunately don’t have a lot of things that we can pass on generationally because a lot of them were stolen from us. But the legacy that I have in my family of an education, of homeownership and of family togetherness and resiliency, is what I want to pass on to the future. And homeownership is part of that.”

Michelle Merriweather
President and CEO of Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle

“We live in a region that has created prosperity for many residents but left Black communities behind on every pillar of well-being, economic prosperity, health equity, legal justice, education and civic engagement. It is time to activate the right levers that will change outcomes for the better in our Black communities. We also know that when we all do better, we all do better.”

Andrea Caupain Sanderson
CEO of Byrd Barr Place

“Due to historical structural and persistent institutional racism and exclusion, homeownership is less attainable for Black households. Black Home Initiative will help to align resources and remove barriers to ensure we are making the dream of homeownership possible for our Black communities.”

Victoria Woodards
Mayor of Tacoma