美国国家公共电台 NPR For The Black Middle Class, Housing Crisis And History Collude To Dash Dreams

For The Black Middle Class, Housing Crisis And History Collude To Dash Dreams  

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The American middle class is not monolithic 2. It looks different depending where in the country you live, how old you are and what your race is. Today in our series The New Middle, a slice of the black middle-class experience. One of the wealthiest majority-black counties in the United States sits just east of Washington, D.C. This is Prince George's County, Md. The median income is $73,000 a year. That's more than $20,000 higher than the national average.

GRATTAN BETANCOURT: Hi.

SHAPIRO: Hi.

G BETANCOURT: Welcome.

SHAPIRO: Thank you so much.

G BETANCOURT: Thanks for coming out.

EVELYN BETANCOURT: Thank you so much for having us.

SHAPIRO: Grattan and Evelyn Betancourt bought their home here in 1986. It's two stories, with a brick front and a wide lawn. Some evenings, deer come out of the woods and linger in their yard.

E BETANCOURT: This was our first, and it will be our only home.

G BETANCOURT: You know, when you look at the neighborhood, it has a kind of a look of middle-class prosperity. But the reality is - and we're aware of this - that many people here, even though they've lived here many years, are fighting to save their homes.

SHAPIRO: That's true of the Betancourts, too. They think back to when they bought this house. They were both working at the Ford 3 dealership 4 that they still work at today. The house was new construction, and they added special touches, like a bay window.

G BETANCOURT: Even though that was 30 years ago, we started thinking of the future. We wanted a home that didn't involve a lot of steps because we knew that one day steps were going to be a problem.

SHAPIRO: Because, when you bought it, you knew this was the place you were going to grow old in.

G BETANCOURT: Yes.

E BETANCOURT: Yes.

G BETANCOURT: That was our intent. We were going to stay here. This is where we were going to live the rest of our lives.

SHAPIRO: Here in Prince George's County, a quarter of the homes are underwater. The owners owe more than the homes are worth. The Betancourt's home is worth a little over $300,000, but they owe close to half a million on it. Around the country, black middle-class neighborhoods have recovered from the housing crash much more slowly than white neighborhoods. In the Betancourt's case, they had almost paid off their mortgage in 2005, when Grattan needed open-heart surgery. The bank suggested that Evelyn cash out her retirement 5 plan. She liquidated 6 everything and took out a loan on the house to pay her husband's medical bills.

G BETANCOURT: Then Evelyn had an accident on the job that really hurt her earning ability for a while.

SHAPIRO: Both of them had to scale back their hours at the Ford dealership, where they've worked for more than 30 years. They fell behind on payments. Now, they're afraid they'll lose their home.

G BETANCOURT: Being in the middle class, it gives you opportunity, but it doesn't give you immunity 7. And the further up you step, the harder it is to stay there.

SHAPIRO: You know, we know from lawsuits 8, we know from Justice Department investigations 9 that black homeowners have been consistently given a worse deal than white homeowners. And here we are in Prince George's County, one of the wealthiest majority-black counties in the country, and the rate of recovery has been nowhere near that of the rest of the country. What do you make of that?

E BETANCOURT: I would say definitely race plays a part in it. I would say, unfortunately, age sometimes plays a part in it. You have people that are in their 60s and their 70s that don't understand the paperwork. You know, they're told or they get a certified 10 letter and, like in my case, with my husband having a bad heart, do I decide to show it to him or share it with him, or do I put it away? And then, sometimes, you put it away, and it's too late to try to be able to unravel 11 what you've got into.

SHAPIRO: For the Betancourt's, it might not be too late. They're working with a counselor 12 named Luis Perez at a place called the Housing Initiative Partnership 13.

LUIS PEREZ: The majority of the people that walk in here are middle class.

SHAPIRO: His small office has plants and a fish tank to help people relax a little bit.

PEREZ: I have seen a lot of tears, I have. I've seen people come in here, you know, stressed out, worried, can't sleep at nights. They know they're going to lose their homes.

SHAPIRO: Most of his clients are black or Latino. He says about 30 percent of them manage to hang onto their homes. When he tells people not to lose hope, he speaks from personal experience.

PEREZ: I went through exactly what people in front of my desk are going through. I did lose my house.

SHAPIRO: It's a familiar story. He got laid off in a merger 14, then went through foreclosure, bankruptcy 15, moved into a tiny apartment. He was 63 years old, and it took him five years to rebuild his credit. He tells his clients about what it was like to show them that they can bounce back, too.

PEREZ: OK, my wife was not working. OK, the stress that we went through, the sleepless 16 nights that we went through, the fear, OK, and the decision that I have to make because I was afraid of being thrown out on the streets.

SHAPIRO: Now, he's about to buy a home once again. At work, he is negotiating with the Betancourt's lender, trying to get a repayment 17 plan that'll let them stay in their house without having to go through the trauma 18 that he experienced.

PEREZ: I think that we've got a pretty good chance of keeping their home.

SHAPIRO: But even if they do keep their house, any prospect 19 of retirement or taking a vacation seems far away for the Betancourts.

KRIS MARSH 20: You know, we often talk about how, when white America gets a - gets a cold, black America gets the flu.

SHAPIRO: I met Professor Kris Marsh in another part of Prince George's County to try to understand why the black middle class has recovered so much more slowly from the housing crisis. She's a University of Maryland sociologist 21 who studies the black middle class and lives in a beautiful home in an upscale housing complex. Most of the homeowners here are black, and she says the houses are worth less than they'd be in a similar neighborhood that's majority white.

MARSH: That's the fundamental truth - is, like, it's a racist 22 housing market (laughter). But if we kind of unpack 23 that and add some sociology around that, we have to look at, like, the resources that whites had before the problem that we had in the housing market and how that kind of helped them to rebound 24 so much quicker. Blacks didn't have those resources, so when an emergency or something happens or a crisis happens, it's a little harder for them to bounce back.

SHAPIRO: This is one theme that keeps coming up as we look at what it means to be middle class in America today. You can get by all right, until there's a medical emergency or a tree falls through the roof of your house. One big, surprise expense, and suddenly you're in free fall.

MARSH: You - you might want to go straight.

SHAPIRO: Kris Marsh takes us on a tour of her neighborhood, past duck ponds and playgrounds.

MARSH: It is really great to have a cardiologist live next to you and have a executive police officer live to the right of you and a geneticist live down the street. I mean, that's kind of hot. And they're black. But then, on the flip 25 side, it's like, but we quite haven't arrived yet because are living here by choice, or are we forced to live here? Is that - is the housing market constrained 26?

SHAPIRO: Would you prefer to live in a place that is, you know, 30 percent Latino, 30 percent white, 30 percent black?

MARSH: Well, those places don't exist because whites live in predominantly white areas. But (laughter), OK, so here's how I'm going to answer that question - is it more important for my psychological well-being 27 to be in a predominantly black neighborhood, or is it more important to for me to build equity 28 faster in my house? And if that's the case, then I should live in a more mixed community.

SHAPIRO: Because you know that, living in a predominantly black neighborhood, your house is not going to increase in value as quickly as if your neighbors were white.

MARSH: Yes, yes.

SHAPIRO: Even if it's a neighborhood like this, where every house is gorgeous?

MARSH: Yes.

SHAPIRO: She leads us to the center of the housing complex, where there's a grand mansion 29. It's the original plantation 30 house. This entire development was built on land that once held slaves. Professor Marsh lives on a street named after one of those slaves, a woman called Hattie.

MARSH: I'm pretty sure Hattie was a cook.

SHAPIRO: Marsh feels a bit like she's reclaiming 31 history, but it's also painful.

MARSH: So every morning, when I'm - like, I arrive, I've got to drive past that.

SHAPIRO: Hattie was never allowed to own a home. And today, it still feels like black homeowners face some obstacles that white homeowners do not.