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Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing And Home Ownership In Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940 - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by Andrew Wiese

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Not surprisingly, patterns of lending on the west side reflected these distinct patterns of home building. In Hovland's addition, the size and terms of mortgage loans matched the low cost of construction and the informal strategies employed by local builders. At one end of the spectrum were owner-builders like the Moores, who built houses at very low cost without apparent recourse to credit. [58] Other black owner-builders were able to arrange financing, however, even though they built very inexpensive homes. Joseph and Mary Ivester, for example, bought a lot on Brown Avenue in 1915 and borrowed $600 from the State Bank and Trust Company of Evanston to build a new home. [59] The Ivesters' loan notwithstanding, local banks generally avoided mortgages in Hovland's addition. In fact, local banks made loans to just two African Americans in Hovland's addition between 1915 and 1932. individual lenders from Evanston, too, expressed caution, especially with black home builders. John Hahn, for instance, made thirteen loans to white home builders in Hovland's addition but none to African Americans. Instead, the great majority of mortgage loans in Hovland's addition originated in Chicago. More than 40 percent originated with the Chicago Title and Trust Company, which had a record of small lending all over the city. [60]

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Reflecting the low cost of housing (and the limited collateral that lot owners had to offer), home loans in Hovland's addition tended to be conservative. This was certainly true of Chicago Title and Trust Company's loans, which ranged in value from $400 to $1,000, at higher rates of interest than other west Evanston loans. The median loan in Hovland's addition was $600, due in 3 years at 6.5 percent interest--though Chicago Title and Trust routinely charged 7 percent (at face value). Second mortgages were worth about twice as much, reflecting the accumulation of collateral by builders as houses neared completion. Still, loans extended to African Americans in Hovland's addition remained about half the size of the median loan in Ayars Place. [61] Low cost home builders could get small construction loans to build in Hovland's addition, but they apparently paid a price for the service.

Patterns of mortgage lending in Culver's addition reflected a different segment of the market altogether. In contrast to both Hovland's and Hobbs' additions (Ayars Place), banks lent actively to the speculators building homes for African Americans in Culver's addition. City and suburban banks provided almost 40 percent of mortgage loans in Culver's addition, compared to 12 percent in Hovland's addition and just 4 percent on Ayars Place. These included the Chicago-based Bank of America, which made construction loans to James Barbour on several properties, and the State Bank and Trust Company of Evanston, (Evanston's largest and oldest bank) which made fifteen loans for construction or purchase, ten directly to African Americans. Additionally, individual lenders from both Chicago and Evanston lent money to African Americans who built homes either for speculation or personal use. Finally, although the sample was small, lenders appear to have lent substantially more money to new home builders in Culver's additio n than to builders in Hovland's addition. The median value of ten loans traced in Culver's addition was $3,000, compared to $1,319 in Hovland's addition. [62] More than either Ayars Place or Hovland's addition, lending and building in Culver's addition had many attributes of a formal housing market, dominated by lending institutions and speculative building contractors.

Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing And Home Ownership In Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940 - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by Andrew Wiese

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