President Clinton and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have set a goal of increasing homeownership in America. Currently the rate of homeownership is approximately 64 percent of the population. The goal is to raise that rate to 67.5 percent by the year 2000, a higher rate than ever recorded in U.S. history. Achieving the goal will require about 8 million families to acquire homes of their own. HUD has developed a plan for reaching the national homeownership goal. The plan is known as the National Homeownership Strategy. It was formulated with input from more than 50 public- and private-sector groups and consists of 100 objectives designed to make homeownership easier and affordable for American families. Among the objectives are expanded use of energy conservation and new construction technologies. The groups participating in the formulation of the National Homeownership Strategy formed a collaboration that was named the National Partners in Homeownership. Chicago Partners in the American Dream is a collaboration of Chicago organizations implementing the National Homeownership Strategy on a local level. It has made achieving the objectives of the Strategy the foundation for its local partnership. The Chicago Partners in the American Dream is a grassroots collaboration, combining the experience, resources, and expertise of a variety of local organizations. The fundamental goal of the Chicago Partners in the American Dream is to create 5,000 homeownership opportunities in nine to twelve focused areas within Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Communities in the Chicagoland market by the end of the year 2000.

A Brookings Institution Press and Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies publication The ups and downs in housing markets over the past two decades are without precedent, and the costs—financial, psychological, and social—have been enormous. Yet Americans overwhelmingly still aspire to homeownership, and many still view access to homeownership as an important ingredient for building wealth among historically disadvantaged groups. This timely volume reexamines the goals, risks, and rewards of homeownership in the wake of the housing bubble and subprime lending crisis. Housing, real estate, and finance experts explore the role of government in supporting homeownership, deliberate how homeownership can be made more sustainable, and discuss how best to balance affordability, access, and risk, particularly for minorities and low income families. Contributors: Eric S. Belsky (JCHS); Raphael W. Bostic (University of Southern California); Mark Calabria (Cato Institute); Kaloma Cardwell (University of California, Berkeley); Mark Cole (Hope LoanPort); J. Michael Collins (University of Wisconsin– Madison); Marsha J. Courchane (Charles River Associates); Andrew Davidson (Andrew Davidson and Co.); Christopher E. Herbert (JCHS); Leonard C. Kiefer (Freddie Mac); Alex Levin (Andrew Davidson and Co.); Adam J. Levitin (Georgetown University Law Center); Mark R. Lindblad (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Jeffrey Lubell (Abt Associates); Patricia A. McCoy (University of Connecticut School of Law); Daniel T. McCue (JCHS); Jennifer H. Molinsky (JCHS); Stephanie Moulton (Ohio State University); john a. powell (University of California–Berkeley); Roberto G. Quercia (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Janneke H. Ratcliffe (University of North Carolina); Carolina Reid (University of California–Berkeley); William M. Rohe (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Rocio Sanchez-Moyano (JCHS); Susan Wachter (University of Pennsylvania); Peter M. Zorn (Freddie Mac)

In Latin America, Scandinavian housing experts explained that "housing is too important a commodity to be subjected to the same general market conditions as other goods", but the Americans ridiculed such a stance. The Cold War was fought with bricks and mortar, not just small, hot wars in poor places and the threat of nuclear Armageddon. Privatisation began in Malaysia in the 1940s; in West Germany, Taiwan, Burma and South Korea in the 1950s; India in 1964; Jordan in 1965; Brazil in 1966; Guatemala and Nigeria in 1967; and the Philippines (again) in 1968. In the 1960s, the US granted loans to expand the private housing sectors in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. They began housing projects in Rhodesia, Zambia and Mali. They moved into Senegal in 1972, Botswana in 1973, Tanzania in 1974 and Kenya in 1975 - all the while spreading the American dream.