President Bush hosted The White House Conference on Minority Homeownership on Tuesday, bringing together hundreds of public and private sector housing-related experts in a comprehensive partnership to close the nation's "homeownership gap."

For many years, a substantial gap has existed between the homeownership rates of majority and minority families; although homeownership surged during the 1990's, the gap between minority and white households declined by just 1.5 percentage points. In his State of the Union address last January, President Bush pledged to help more families, especially minority families, to become homeowners. In June, the President issued his "Homeownership Challenge" to increase minority homeownership by 5.5 million by the end of the decade.

"President Bush understands that when we open the doors of the American Dream to more families, we all win," said Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez. "Homeownership inspires civic responsibility, offers children a stable living environment and generates economic benefits for families and communities."

The White House Conference on Minority Homeownership featured solutions to the obstacles minority families face as they pursue the "American Dream" as well as the considerable social and economic benefits of expanding homeownership opportunities to would-be first time homeowners.

Numerous private and nonprofit organizations joined the Administration in forming The Blueprint for the American Dream Partnership, a collaborative effort to advance the President's goal. This partnership developed a strategy that identifies four areas that must be addressed in order to meet the President's goal including:

• Educating more people in the home buying process;
• Increasing the supply of affordable homes;
• Providing more downpayment and closing cost assistance; and,
• Offering more home financing options for lower income Americans.

The Blueprint for the American Dream outlines each organization's plan to help meet the Administration's challenge.

Read the full news announcement.

Visit the Blueprint for the American Dream page for more information about the Blueprint Partners, the Pathways to homeownership, and individual commitments made by each of the partners.

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President Bush's goal of expanding minority homeownership by 5.5 million families will stimulate an additional $256 billion in benefits to the housing sector of the U.S. economy, according to a new report released on Tuesday by Secretary Martinez. The HUD report, Economic Benefits of Increasing Minority Homeownership, was released at the White House Conference on Increasing Minority Homeownership in Washington.

"President Bush's goal of opening the doors of the American Dream to more families will transform lives on so many levels," said Martinez. "When people own their own homes, they not only build their own futures, they transform entire communities in ways that have enormous social and economic benefits to all Americans."

In June, President Bush announced his goal to help increase minority homeownership by 5.5 million by the end of the decade in an effort to close the so-called "homeownership gap." This gap shows minority families continue to significantly lag behind the nation's homeownership rate. Despite increases in minority homeownership during the 1990s, less than half of African-American and Hispanic families own their own home while 74.3 percent of non-Hispanic whites are homeowners.

Based on latest Census and other economic statistics, HUD's report indicates that homeownership not only serves as a source of stability for families and communities but also provides the foundation for many Americans' financial security. In addition to adding to personal wealth, owning a home also creates jobs in the construction trades and benefits businesses that sell home improvement and other housing-related goods and services.

Increasing Homeownership Spurs Job Growth

Perhaps the largest societal benefit of increasing homeownership is seen in the millions of jobs it creates for American workers. For example, building 1,000 single-family homes creates 2,448 full-time jobs. Approximately 40 percent of these jobs are onsite construction work; another 27 percent involve employment in transportation, trade, and other locally based services. Additional jobs are created to meet the increase in demand for household goods and services. This increase in jobs represents over $150 billion in new wages.

In addition, expenses for professional services provided when buying and financing a home, including those of real estate agents, mortgage originators and others are estimated to be $70 billion.

Read the full news announcement.

Read the new HUD report, Economic Benefits of Increasing Minority Homeownership.

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If you missed the Tuesday, October 15th White House Conference on Increasing Minority Homeownership, you can still see and hear President Bush and Secretary Martinez in a special web cast.

Choose a version with or without captions, and watch presentations from this special conference at your convenience.

Visit the Blueprint for the American Dream page.