Homeownership

Honoring America’s Promise: How Passing Unused VA Loan Benefits Down to Veteran’s Descendants Could Narrow the African-American Homeownership Gap

The Consumer Federation of America released a policy proposal illustrating an alternate path for closing the African American homeownership gap. Honoring America’s Promise: How Passing Unused VA Loan Benefits Down to Veteran’s Descendants Could Narrow the African-American Homeownership Gap recommends a framework for transferring the previously unused home loan benefit for any veteran to the veteran’s surviving spouse, child, grandchild, and other direct descendant, without limitation. For purposes of the proposal, transferable VA loan benefits would have accrued to veterans whose service period roughly overlaps with the federal government’s support of racially restrictive housing policies, namely between the passage of the GI Bill in 1944 up through the enactment of the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977.