Home Ownership Rate For Black Minnesotans Drops

ST. PAUL  (AP) - New census figures show the home ownership rate for black Minnesotans has dropped.

According to 2010 U.S. census data released this week, the rate fell to 25 percent last year compared to 32 percent a decade earlier.

Experts point to a wave of predatory lending, followed by a worsening economy resulting in job losses.

Census figures indicate the overall statewide home ownership rate is 73 percent.

Ed Nelson, a spokesman for the Minnesota Homeownership Center, says foreclosures are mostly caused from unemployment or underemployment and the black community has a disproportionate population of people in those categories.

Minnesota's black homeownership rate trails that of other states for which 2010 data is available, including Alabama, Delaware, California, Kansas, Connecticut, Colorado and North Carolina.

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