Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month and the People and Policies That Help Create Housing Opportunities for All

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month and the People and Policies That Help Create Housing Opportunities for All

Solomon Greene, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research
Sahian Valladares, Senior Advisor for Outreach and Engagement, Office of Policy Development and Research

Solomon Greene, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research (left) and Sahian Valladares, Senior Advisor for Outreach and Engagement for Policy Development and Research (right).

This Hispanic Heritage Month, HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) recognizes and honors the countless positive contributions of Hispanic Americans and Latinos. HUD remains dedicated to ensuring that all Americans, including members of the Hispanic and Latino communities, can access quality, affordable housing.  

Bringing people "home" is at the heart of everything we do at HUD. Our responsibility is to ensure that everyone can live in a safe, healthy, and stable home in a thriving community — particularly those among us who face the greatest barriers to housing and economic opportunity. 

Hispanic Heritage Month invites us to celebrate the unique voices and experiences of the Latino community. It also invites us to take stock of HUD's ongoing initiatives and programs designed to serve Hispanic communities by supporting housing stability, expanding homeownership, investing in Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and strengthening representation within the federal workforce.

Supporting Housing Stability 

Housing instability disproportionately affects Hispanic households. During the COVID-19 pandemic, research from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University found that Black and Hispanic households were at significantly greater risk of eviction than households from other racial and ethnic groups. Recent research from the Urban Institute found that in Washington, D.C., people who identify as Hispanic make up 14 percent of those experiencing housing insecurity but represent 7 percent of the city's overall population.

In 2021, PD&R launched the Eviction Protection Grant Program (EPGP), a first-of-its-kind federal program designed to expand the reach of legal services to low-income tenants at risk of, or subject to, eviction. Evicted tenants, especially children, face significant long-term consequences. Yet, most tenants do not have access to legal assistance. EPGP aims to help fill this gap. EPGP funds legal assistance that can help low-income tenants reach more mutually beneficial resolutions with landlords or defend against illegal evictions. 

HUD currently funds a total of 21 EPGP grantees across 19 states that provide no-cost legal assistance to prevent or divert eviction and mitigate the consequences of eviction. As of March 31, 2024, grantees have provided legal assistance to more than 35,000 households, and approximately 16 percent of the households that EPGP serves are Hispanic. This past July, HUD announced an additional $40 million in grant funds to provide no-cost legal assistance to low-income tenants at risk of or subject to eviction.

Expanding Homeownership

In a series of Cityscape symposia in 2021, PD&R explored various dimensions of the "Hispanic Housing Experience in the United States," from homelessness and segregation to homeownership and disaster risk. In an article on Hispanic homeownership by Dowell Myers and David Flores Moctezuma, the authors found that Hispanic homeowners tend to be younger than other homeowners, and they found a significant gap in homeownership rates between White, non-Hispanic households (71.7%) and Hispanic households (46.8%) in 2019. 

Mortgages insured through HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) are a critical source of mortgage credit for Hispanic households. Since January 2021, nearly 400,000 Hispanic borrowers have purchased their homes with the help of FHA-insured financing. In addition, more than 100,000 Hispanic borrowers hold FHA-insured refinance loans. The percentage of FHA mortgages insured to Hispanic and African American borrowers outpaced the overall housing market. Last fiscal year, FHA reported that 24.8 percent of FHA-insured loans — nearly one in four — served Latino/Hispanic borrowers.

Since January 2022, HUD also has awarded more than $180 million in grants to support HUD-approved housing counseling agencies that equip individuals and families with vital education and resources to inform decisions about their housing needs and opportunities. In June 2024, HUD awarded $10 million to 23 HUD-approved housing counseling intermediaries and state housing finance agencies. The initiative supports culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate pre- and post-purchase counseling activities by these agencies and their affiliates to prepare and equip prospective homebuyers to successfully navigate the homebuying process and guide their access to the affordable homes they deserve. 

Investing in Hispanic Serving Institutions

HUD knows that solving our nation's housing challenges requires research, evidence, and insights that are grounded in community experience and expertise. To help us build the knowledge base we need to develop and deliver lasting, equitable solutions, PD&R launched the Research Centers of Excellence program in 2021 to support innovative and community-informed research projects on topics of strategic interest to HUD.

In 2023, HUD awarded $10.5 million to four HSIs to establish Centers of Excellence that will advance housing and community development research in Hispanic and Latino communities. These Centers of Excellence have been an important step forward in generating new research and evidence-based insights that will ensure access to quality affordable housing and improve lives in Hispanic and Latino communities. Key topics that PD&R-funded HSIs are pursuing include homeownership disparities among Latino populations, appraisal gap financing, community-engaged research designs to address homelessness, and cooperative research to enable 3D-printed housing technologies. We hope to empower HSIs to conduct research that directly addresses the unique and multifaceted challenges of the communities that surround them and the students they serve.

Strengthening Representation in the Federal Workforce

In September 2021, President Biden issued the Executive Order on White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics. Inspired by the executive order, HUD launched its inaugural Latino Task Force during Hispanic Heritage Month in 2023. The task force brings together career and political staff from throughout HUD to promote economic opportunities for the Hispanic community, drive new policy initiatives to advance equity for the Hispanic community, and create a more inclusive Department through language access, procurement, and hiring. This fall, HUD will release a comprehensive White House Agency Plan Report detailing the progress we have made toward these goals.