Low- to moderate-income lending in context: Progress report on the neighborhood impacts of homeownership policy

This article presents an interpretive progress report on the neighborhood-l evel effects of homeownership policy. The expansion of targeted lending ini tiatives has created unprecedented opportunities for ownership among low- t o moderate-income (LMI) families, racial and ethnic minorities, and other p opulations once excluded from the nation's mainstream housing finance syste m. The article uses a two-stage strategy to provide a more accurate progres s report on efforts to expand LMI homeownership. First, it uses home-purchase data for the 40 largest metropolitan regions t o identify a set of "best-case" neighborhoods that experienced the greatest quantitative increase in LMI lending during the middle 1990s. Second, it a ssesses the nature of these places qualitatively. The approach allows one t o evaluate the degree to which increased LMI lending provides genuine oppor tunities for affordable homeownership-or unleashes other processes that con flict with the goals of affordability and sustainable neighborhood developm ent.