Forty-nine percent of Latino children live in housing units that are owned by someone in their household, according to our new analysis of the American Community Survey (ACS) 2017–2021 5-year data. This includes 36 percent of Latino children who live in households that own homes that carry a mortgage and 13 percent who live in households whose homes are mortgage-free; another 51 percent of Latino children live in rental homes. Overall, 63 percent of all children in the United States live in housing that is owned, which we refer to hereafter as “owned homes.” Because home ownership is a significant factor in families’ wealth accumulation, we examine the proportions of Latino children living in housing that is owned versus rented. Given the wide variation in home ownership across geographies and income levels, our analysis presents ownership and rental proportions across the 50 states and the District of Columbia and by family income in relation to poverty.
We find a wide geographic variation in the proportion of Latino children who live in homes that are owned by someone in their household. The share of Latino children living in owned homes ranges from a high of 80 percent in Vermont to a low of 32 percent in New York. In 10 states, 60 percent or more of Latino children live in owned homes (in order from highest to lowest): Vermont, West Virginia, Michigan, New Mexico, Maine, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Missouri, and Wyoming. Less than 40 percent of Latino children live in owned homes in Rhode Island (39%), Massachusetts (33%), and New York (32%). In total, the percentage of Latino children living in housing units that are owned is above the national average for Latino children (49%) in 34 states.