Homeownership Racial Disparity in Indiana
Indiana
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Indiana Value:
33.9
Difference between the homeownership rates of the white population and the racial/ethnic population with the lowest rate (varies by state)
Indiana Rank:
25
Homeownership Racial Disparity in depth:
Additional Measures:
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About Homeownership Racial Disparity
US Value: 31.6
Top State(s): Vermont: 13.8
Bottom State(s): Maine: 55.1
Definition: Difference between the homeownership rates of the white population and the racial/ethnic population with the lowest rate (varies by state)
Data Source and Years(s): U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2023
Suggested Citation: America's Health Rankings analysis of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, United Health Foundation, AmericasHealthRankings.org, accessed 2025.
Stable housing is essential to overall health and well-being. Racial segregation and mortgage discrimination have historically kept Black Americans from purchasing houses, and these issues persist today. Black residents face significant barriers to becoming homeowners due to the lasting effects of segregation laws on generating personal wealth. Research shows that 27.2% Black mortgage applicants are rejected when applying for a mortgage, compared with only 13.4% of white applicants.
Homeownership provides a sense of stability and safety by preventing frequent moves and minimizing the financial burdens associated with renting. Additionally, homeownership plays an important role in wealth accumulation. Wealth is a major determining factor of health, and income inequality remains a significant public health issue. Low-income households, in particular, may accumulate wealth more successfully through homeownership than other means if they can stay in their homes.
According to America’s Health Rankings analysis, the largest racial and ethnic disparities in homeownership are among Black and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander adults compared with white adults.
Strategies to ensure greater access to homeownership include:
- Providing information and knowledge about home buying, especially among low-income and racial/ethnic minority households.
- Expanding financial support for low-income and minority homeowners like housing reparations to prevent them from transitioning back to renting.
- Enforcing fair housing laws to protect racial/ethnic minority buyers from discrimination.
- Expanding government grants that finance affordable home construction.
Healthy People 2030 identifies housing instability as a key issue within the Economic Stability domain of the other social determinants of health.
Goodman, Laurie S., and Christopher Mayer. “Homeownership and the American Dream.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 32, no. 1 (February 1, 2018): 31–58. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.32.1.31.
Herbert, Christopher E., Shannon Rieger, and Jonathan Spader. “Expanding Access to Homeownership as a Means of Fostering Residential Integration and Inclusion.” In A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2017. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/media/imp/a_shared_future_expanding_access_to_homeownership_fostering_inclusion.pdf.
Krisberg, Kim. “Income Inequality: When Wealth Determines Health: Earnings Influential as Lifelong Social Determinant of Health.” The Nation’s Health 46, no. 8 (October 2016): 1–17. https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/46/8/1.1.
Rolfe, Steve, Lisa Garnham, Jon Godwin, Isobel Anderson, Pete Seaman, and Cam Donaldson. “Housing as a Social Determinant of Health and Wellbeing: Developing an Empirically-Informed Realist Theoretical Framework.” BMC Public Health 20, no. 1 (December 2020): 1138. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09224-0.
Wainer, Allison, and Jeffrey Zabel. “Homeownership and Wealth Accumulation for Low-Income Households.” Journal of Housing Economics 47 (March 2020): 101624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2019.03.002.
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