Black seniors in Chicago face 50/50 odds of getting home loans to make improvements

Thomas and Beverly J. Walker enjoying the front porch at their Austin home. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

This story is written by the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, which focuses on exposing systematic racism, while training reporters on data-driven journalism. It is being published through a partnership with Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit newsroom focused on Chicago’s neighborhoods.

CHICAGO — Cynthia Harris can’t walk up the stairs to her Far South Side home without help.

The concrete stairs to her Rosemoor home, where she’s lived since the 1960s, urgently need repairs. Harris, 64, has limited mobility after suffering a stroke, and she has to use a stool to get up and down.

Harris contacted the city for help, but they told her there was a three-year-long waiting list. She worried about the wait.

“Anything can happen in three years,” Harris said.

Then, the city’s Home Repair program, which provides low-income homeowners with roof and porch repair grants, sent Harris an email this month confirming she was invited to send preliminary paperwork. She hopes it’s a sign work will start soon. Once that’s finished, she’d like to replace the tub in a full bathroom with a shower that will allow her to easily get in and out.

But Harris, a retired hospital operator, is not sure how she’ll get that work done.

The Chicago Department of Housing has stopped taking new applications, and the alternative solution is a loan. However, it’s hard to get them, particularly in predominantly Black neighborhoods like Harris’.

Between 2018 and 2022, Black neighbors 62 and older were twice as likely to be denied home loans as their white counterparts in Chicago, an analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data by the Investigative Project on Race and Equity shows. Over that time, 48% of Black seniors across the city were denied a mortgage loan compared to 23% of white applicants, the data show.