According to a recent report, Washington State has one the most severe housing shortages in the nation. More than a million new homes are needed over the next 20 years to make up for the immediate and future shortage. Currently, surging demand continues to outpace supply, and housing remains extremely expensive compared to much of the U.S.
To help more Washingtonians buy homes, the Washington State Housing Finance Commission launched the Washington Covenant Homeownership Program in July 2024. The program offers down payment and closing cost assistance—among the greatest barriers to first-time homeownership—in the form of a zero-interest secondary mortgage loan. Recipients pay back the program loan with proceeds from selling or refinancing the home they buy with the loan.
But there’s a catch: The program is available only to specific racial categories of people, specifically: black, Hispanic, Native American, Alaskan native, Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander, Korean, or Asian Indian. There’s no good explanation why some races are included but others aren’t. That’s a clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees all Americans equal protection under the law.
Washington’s impossibly high housing costs don’t discriminate—they price people of all races out of homeownership. This includes members of the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting equal protection under the law. FAIR has members who dream of owning a home in Washington and would fully qualify for the program if race weren’t a factor.
If the state is concerned about home affordability, it should address the constraints in the housing supply. Assisting first-time homebuyers with down payments and closing costs may help some people buy a home but will do little to address the overall cost of housing. (A better way would be to ease land-use restrictions that make it costly and time-consuming to build new housing.)
If Washington decides to provide these benefits, however, it cannot be at the expense of equal opportunity. It’s wrong for the government to gate access to public benefits on the basis of race. Moreover, it’s unconstitutional.
The equal protection guarantee of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment protects individuals from government discrimination due to arbitrary classifications like race.
With free representation by Pacific Legal Foundation, FAIR is fighting back with a federal lawsuit challenging Washington’s discriminatory housing program to restore equal treatment for all first-time homebuyers, regardless of race.
What’s At Stake?
- It is unjust and unconstitutional for a state to deny anyone the opportunity to access much-needed housing assistance based solely on their race—particularly during a housing crisis. Access to government assistance programs (like the Washington Covenant Homeownership Program) cannot—and should not—be gated due to an applicants’ immutable characteristics.
