

2. Housing
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Make addressing the ongoing effects of redlining a top priority for my administration. In collaboration with state-chartered community banks, local credit unions, and other community-focused lenders, my administration will seek to provide state-backed mortgage loans to individuals in communities of color with a goal of creating parity in new homeownership rates by the end of my administration’s first term, with an explicit focus on historically disinvested communities.
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Ensure fair and equitable home appraisal standards in all communities, so that Black families are assessed the true value of their homes and other properties.
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My administration will seek to eliminate predatory loans in the housing industry, which disproportionately affect Black homeowners.
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One side effect of Black homeownership being disproportionately low is that Black Marylanders make up a significant portion of the renter population in our state. This means that during periods of economic hardship when evictions spike, as they did with COVID, Black renters carry a disproportionate burden of the state’s housing insecurity. My administration will address this by:
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Piloting an eviction diversion program that expands on the right to counsel for evictions, through which the state offers temporary rent payments directly to landlords for tenants who can prove a substantial and temporary loss of income.
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