The American Prospect‘s Kai Wright has a good rundown on how the foreclosure crisis has perpetuated the homeownership gap between whites and African-Americans:

The housing boom proved to be just another trapdoor in a centuries-long game of Chutes and Ladders for black and brown strivers. By 2007, the black homeownership rate had plunged nearly three points, to 47 percent, a larger drop than among any other group, and is probably lower today. Worse, the damage is concentrated in what were once sturdy black middle-class neighborhoods.

Earlier this year, CommonWealth‘s Michael Jonas looked at the effects of subprime lending in Brockton and Dorchester, among other areas in Massachusetts, and took note of how lenders were targeting minority homeowners:

“What happened, to be quite frank, is a lot of people were taken advantage of by people in their own community,” says Brockton Mayor James Harrington. Adding a particularly unseemly dimension to the foreclosure crisis, the vast subprime enterprise that paid off so handsomely for top finance executives counted on foot soldiers who looked like, and could therefore win the easy trust of, borrowers to close the deals.

Graphic from The American Prospect post.