When Time magazine named Sacramento the most diverse city in America in 2002, African American families living here still participated broadly in the American dream of owning a home and building wealth.
It was a long-standing pattern. For 45 years starting in 1960, around 40 to 50 percent of African Americans in Sacramento County owned their homes, census figures show. By the turn of the century, the black homeownership rate in Sacramento County was higher than the statewide average and higher than other California urban centers such as Los Angeles and San Diego.
Those days have passed.
Just 27 percent of black householders in Sacramento County owned their homes in 2015, down from 43 percent in 2006, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. By comparison, 62 percent of whites and 43 percent of Hispanics in the county owned their homes in 2015.
Blacks are also losing ground elsewhere; their homeownership rate fell nationwide from 46 percent in 2006 to 41 percent in 2015. But the trend is particularly severe in Sacramento. Only 13 of the largest 100 counties in the United States had a lower black homeownership rate than Sacramento County in 2015, census figures show.
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