ABSTRACT
Home ownership has benefits, but they must be balanced against risks and costs. This chapter explores both aspects of owning a home, and how the balance of costs and benefits often shifts when low-income families become home owners. Affordable home ownership, whether for lower income inner city families or struggling middle-class workers in high-cost areas, is a major theme, perhaps even the dominant element, in American public policy regarding affordable housing. The goal of owning one's own home has become part and parcel of the American vision of the good life, seen as all but inseparable from the much-heralded American Dream. The Bush administration's barely noticeable initiative to provide lower income home buyers with down payment assistance was grandiosely labeled the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act. Eighty percent of the participants are first-time buyers, and 50 percent are members of minority groups.
