Black mother, daughter credit Biden stimulus package for creating path to homeownership

Latreca Pryor and her daughter, Ikina, thank Biden for passing law that helped them purchase their first home and start “new chapter” in their lives

A Black mother and her daughter have credited President Joe Biden for helping them achieve their dream of homeownership in Las Vegas, aided by the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package passed in 2021.

In a White House video released on Wednesday, the mother-daughter duo met and thanked Biden for enacting a program that assisted them in purchasing their first home.

“Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan helped pay our first down payment on our home,” Ikina, the daughter, said in the video posted to the president’s social media accounts. 

Latreca Pryor, a 54-year-old single mother, explained that she moved to Las Vegas from Chicago to be closer to her mother and sister. Aiming to own a home within five years of relocating, she took a course that taught participants how to budget and raise their credit scores. The course was provided through a Nevada housing program funded by the American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law to stabilize the economy after the 2020 pandemic shutdown.

“Within the year, I qualified,” said Pryor, who proudly displayed her certificate. “[The] American Rescue Plan gave me $15,000 to put down on my first down payment on my home.”

Pryor and Ikina met Biden during his visit to Las Vegas last week and thanked him for his help in making homeownership a reality for them. Pryor, a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) hospital worker, admitted she was initially “nervous” about meeting the president.

“Once he grabbed my hand, shook my hand, I felt very calm,” she said. 

“He’s like one of those people you feel like you can talk to all the time. He was very nurturing,” Ikina said. Biden gifted her a plant that she plans to grow in her new bedroom, which is the first that she had with a window.

“So now that I got sunlight, I can nurture this plant Joe Biden actually gave to me,” she added.

Ikina, rocking her hair in pink twists, added, “It gives me a space to be creative and have a room that reflects my personality.”

“I was gonna bring you a tree … but I go you a plant,” Biden said.

Pryor said she and her daughter have been “really, really happy” since securing their first home. Ikina said the moment felt like a “new chapter” in their lives.

In his post of the video, Biden said his administration will “continue our work to bring down the cost of housing — because every family deserves a place to call home.”

U.S. home prices spiked between the summer of 2020 through 2022, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data, fueling high costs with limited housing supplies. Though Black homeownership increased slightly during the pandemic amid historic low interest rates, the racial gap in homeownership remains persistent, and Black homeowners are more cost-burdened than any other racial group. 

Through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Biden-Harris administration has sought to remedy the high cost of housing for homeowners, homebuyers and renters. 

The agency reduced annual mortgage insurance premiums through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which insures home mortgages for millions of Americans every year. Other efforts include changing how student loan debt is calculated in FHA underwriting to avoid placing an unfair disadvantage for borrowers seeking a mortgage, holding counseling sessions for prospective homebuyers (like the one utilized by Pryor) and establishing programs for first-time home buyers. 

In his State of the Union speech, Biden proposed a $400 monthly tax credit for homeowners over two years. The president also called for higher tax rates for wealthy Americans and corporations to pay for his economic agenda.

As the 2024 election cycle presses on and Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris work to win over Black voters ahead of November, videos highlighting what their administration has done in the past three years are seen as an effective tool. 

“It’s the continuation of a really smart strategy by the Biden campaign apparatus to really do the advocacy and tell the story of how President Biden is impacting the lives of Black voters through real people,” said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Last month, a video of Biden visiting the Raleigh, North Carolina, home of a Black father, Eric Fitts, and his two sons went viral. Fitts had $125,000 worth of student loans forgiven by the Biden administration. 

“People should be able to see and feel that their government is working for them on their behalf, and if you look at the president and his successes, America is starting to feel and see the change, one household at a time,” Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Biden-Harris campaign surrogate, told theGrio. 

“The president wasn’t just giving lip service when he campaigned on restoring the soul of this nation. Restoring the soul of the nation included investing in America’s middle class and rebuilding our economy from the middle out and bottom up.”  

Payne said Team Biden-Harris and the Democratic Party broadly are starting to invest in “micro storytelling” like those of Pryor and Ikina in Las Vegas and Fitts in Raleigh. Addressing economic issues, as opposed to solely focusing on what have traditionally been considered Black issues like policing and voting rights, is “going to be a more persuasive message” for Black voters, Payne noted.

“Black folks care about housing costs, and about the economy, and about paying off expensive student loans and all these other things that, frankly, like every other community,” he said.

Gerren Keith Gaynor is a White House Correspondent and the Managing Editor of Politics at theGrio. He is based in Washington, D.C.

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