The Color of Homeownership: Increasing Wealth in Black and Brown Communities

By Dr. Tori Brown

The Color of HomeOwnership

Increasing Wealth In Black and Brown Communities 

<

• Language: English
• Publisher: Success Lockdown Group LLC
• Release date: Dec 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735133249

Book preview

Dedication

To my mom Juanita Brown, father John T. Brown, Godmother Ann Jordan, and to all of the future homebuyers that I have not had an opportunity to meet yet. I am looking forward to developing your journey of homeownership, so your family can impact the generations to come.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction:

Chapter 1: The Haves and the Have Nots

Chapter 2: Acid Reflux In Your Pockets

Chapter 3: Increasing Homeownership in Black and Brown Communities

Chapter 4:  Jack and Jill Went Up The Hill

Chapter 5: Building an Ark With Homeownership

Chapter 6: Situational Generational Poverty Solutions (SGPS)

Epilogue: All My Favorite Colors

About The Author and Fresh Community Development Inc

Introduction:

The Post Pandemic American Dream

I

t's almost fall of 2021 and so much has happened since we last spoke. The pandemic has made me lose so many things. I am also in the process of my loss and finding a lot of things as well. In April 2020, right after I started writing the book I published in 2020 called Acid Reflux: How To Stomach This Economy, I lost my Aunt Essie due to Covid. It was so weird and unexpected. My mom's birthday was one week before hers. So being the cute Aries Zodiac sign that they both are of course they called each other to remind each other that it was their birthday. This relationship was very sweet to see, as I watched them each week FaceTime each other often, and reminisce about the olden days when they both were younger.

Well into their 70’s I see their strength and wisdom and beauty all wrapped up into one. During this pandemic and their distance FaceTime is how they communicated on a regular basis. I was so proud of my Aunt Essie as I called her because she really knew how to work her IPhone. She was so savvy and creative and just a wealth of wisdom knowledge and scholar of faith and prayer and love for God. She spoke so eloquently as she and mom would laugh on the phone for hours. If you notice, I refer to my Aunt Essie in past tense because yes, Covid claimed her life. While Jesus claimed her soul. It was so fast and unexpected. I mean one week we were all on the IPhone together singing happy birthday to my mom and the next week we were speaking with her to wish her a happy birthday. The very next day she became very ill in the nursing home she lived in and was transported to the hospital a couple days later and a couple days after that she was gone!

Aunt Essie wasn't really my aunt. She was actually an older cousin. But in my family when the older loved one was of age and wisdom, we acknowledge them as an Uncle or an Aunt as a sign of respect to their position in your life. Man...where can we find another acknowledgement or sign of respect as it relates to your position in your life. We are all trying to get there.  We want to face it head on so we can identify it as our piece of the pie. Yes you got it, I am talking about The Great American Dream.

This time not only was our dream under attack but our safety is being compromised. Well we know that some have chosen to be vaccinated and others have chosen to not be. There we are with another level of division. See prior to that you know we live in the great divide. Black or white, poor or rich, employed or unemployed, and now vaccinated or unvaccinated. No matter what category you find yourself in there is an even just important divide that we need to talk about and I am going to talk about it right now. Homeowner vs Renter.

Now this can get ugly if you're not prepared to step into the coldness of why some people become homeowners and why some do not. Most can argue that some people choose not to become a homeowner. Others may argue that people don’t become homeowners because there is not much help on how to become one. My argument is simple. Information is currency! The point that I make with this argument pivots to this point. The only difference between the haves and the have nots is the information you have access to. Both my argument and point is indicated in the book I wrote last year.

Do you know that we are responsible for what we don't know? Oh you didn't get that life memo. Yes of course, we are. Because now we are living in a world where we are penalized for the things that we do not know. They say that ignorance is no excuse for the law and they mean that! You watch Judge Judy on Television. If they meant that for law then they mean that for you. You have to know stuff, there's no excuse.

You have Google and all these other search engines and books you can use as a reference to become better at anything you want to become better at. What about becoming better at stewardship? What is stewardship? According to Google, stewardship is the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property. How can we take care of land we do not own? I remember my dad used to say it was a shame to be 100 years old and don’t own a thing with your name on it.

As a kid I didn't understand exactly what he was referring to but I understood ownership is important. Well it is to my family. My father and mom owned their home and their parents both owned their homes as well. So generationally homeownership was just a thing. It's what you did when you became an adult. You owned something as in real estate. It wasn't until I was older and around others that accumulated wealth through asset building strategies that I understood that ownership is what created wealth.

Information is the currency that created the same wealth. So I learned very quickly that the more information I soaked up, the more currency I could create. Let’s jump into something right quick, Cryptocurrency. This term became very hot during the pandemic. Especially for those who were studying and participating in it. During the pandemic, I was stuck at home for hours after hours with nothing, but time to read, think, pray, manifest, yes you got it and create currency. I actually went on a huge vacation for an entire year. I needed that time to heal mentally and physically and spiritually. In this year of peace people say how can you afford to take a year off? Well that's a whole new entire book and I will share it for free on my social media shortly. However, I could vacay the entire year and still make money because of my prior investments and equity positions in other companies that I manage. Most importantly I could take an entire year off and still make money because Information is currency.

One thing I did during the year that was pretty cool and profitable is I invested in stocks and cryptocurrency. I studied where my money was going and why it was going there for that investment.