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Lesson 5

We will consider how the US government has been involved in supporting or overseeing the dream of homeownership in America. We will begin by studying summary information about the creation of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934, a federal policy initiative that was designed to create incentives and support for getting a mortgage loan and purchasing a home. We will form claims about the history and impacts of the FHA, including its different effects on home buying for racial minorities. To study more recent trends in the US housing market, we will examine a longitudinal graph of the changing prices of houses sold in the United States from 1963 to 2018 and practice data interpretation by forming a claim about an observation from the data.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I understand how the United States government has influenced homeownership through legislation and institutions such as the Federal Housing Administration?

  • Can I form and support evidence-based claims after analyzing articles, videos, and graphic representations of data about homeownership in the United States?

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • “Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States” from 1963–2018, US Census Bureau and US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Public Domain, 2018
  • Digital Access
    • “Federal Housing Administration (FHA),” Marie Justine Fritz, Encyclopædia Britannica
    • “Home Sweet Home. Still.,” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2011
    • “National Housing Act 1935,” Federal Housing Administration, YouTube, 1935

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: View – Write

We will watch a 1935 promotional video from the Federal Housing Administration about the national housing act of 1934 in order to learn how the provisions of that legislation were marketed to Americans.

Watch the promotional video "National Housing Act 1935" on YouTube, using the following questions to guide your notes:

  1. What stands out to you as new or interesting information about the Federal Housing Administration and the National Housing Act of 1934?

  2. What seems to be the perspective from which the video presents its information? How does the video’s perspective compare to that of the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the FHA?

  3. What does the video not suggest about the different impacts of the FHA on Whites and racial minorities?

Activity 2: Discuss

As a class, we will discuss what we have learned about the national housing act and the Federal Housing Administration to better understand how the us government has historically supported homeownership.

As a class, think about and discuss the following questions, using evidence from the video to support your answer:

  1. What perspective is "National Housing Act 1935" presented from? How does its perspective compare to that of the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the FHA?

  2. In what ways did the National Housing Act of 1934 encourage Americans to build or buy homes?

  3. In what ways did the National Housing Act of 1934 affect homeownership for racial minorities in ways different than for White Americans?

  4. What does the history of the FHA suggest about the government’s role in both encouraging and limiting Americans’ access to the dream of homeownership?

Activity 3: Read

We will each form a claim about the national housing act of 1934 and its impacts on homeownership for Americans.

Step 1

Read through page 1 of the Claims Reference Guide to review how to create a claim.

Read through page 7 and compare the various types of claims and their purposes. For this specific unit, we will be focused on creating analytical claims.

  1. How does an analytical claim differ from the other types of claims?

  2. What other types of claims might be useful in writing an argument?

Step 2

Consider one of the questions that your class has discussed. Using that question and a copy of the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool, develop an analytical claim about the impact of the National Housing Act of 1934 and the Federal Housing Administration on homeownership in America.

Compare your analytical claim with those of other students in class.

Activity 4: Read – Discuss – Write

In light of what we have learned about government support for homeownership, we will examine a graph displaying historical data of the cost of houses sold in the us from 1963 to 2018.

Examine the graph "Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States" from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which presents data from the US Census Bureau and US Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1963 to 2018.

As a class, discuss the concept of an average price, the concept of a recession, and the reliability of the data presented given its sources.

Form an analytical claim in response to the following question:

  1. What has happened to the average sales price of houses in the US during the 55 years from 1963 to 2018?

Share and compare your claim with those of other students in class.

Activity 5: Read – Write

We will form additional analytical claims about the data presented in “Average Sales Price Of Houses Sold For The United States” in response to data analysis questions in order to understand what the data suggests about patterns of homeownership in the us over the past fifty years.

With a reading partner, form and compare analytical claims about the graph’s data in response to the following questions:

  1. What seems to have happened to the average sales price of houses sold during recessions in the US economy?

  2. Given what you understand about the subprime mortgage crisis and the resulting Great Recession, what does the graph tell you about the relationship between these events and the average sales price of houses sold in the US?

  3. Considering the average sales price of houses sold in the past few years, which fluctuates around $380,000, what are the implications for homeownership in the US?

Compare your responses and claims with those of other students in class.

Activity 6: Write

We will take a short quiz to indicate how familiar we are with concepts and history related to home mortgages in the United States.

Based on what you know and what you have learned so far, respond to the following questions to help your teacher identify whether you have the background needed to understand future lessons in this unit.

  1. What is a mortgage and how does a person or family get one?

  2. How do each of the following types of mortgages work?

    1. Fixed-rate mortgage

    2. Variable-rate mortgage

    3. Subprime mortgage

  3. In 2008, the United States and the world as a whole experienced the Great Recession. What were some of the causes of this recession? What were some of its results?

  4. How were subprime mortgages and irresponsible lending and borrowing practices connected to this recession? Are those practices still going on? Cite evidence to support your answer.

Activity 7: Read – Write

For homework, we will read the first section of a 2011 survey-based study from the Pew Research Center titled “Home Sweet Home. Still” in order to understand the impacts of the housing crisis on American homeowners and their attitudes about homeownership.

For homework, read, annotate, and analyze the first section of the online report "Home Sweet Home. Still." Read from the overview to The Bubble and its Aftereffects while considering the following guiding questions:

  1. What conclusion does the research study come to about the continuing confidence of the American public in the investment value of owning a home?

  2. What survey data does the article cite to explain its summary claim?

  3. What is one finding or claim of the survey research that stands out to you as significant? Identify the data display this finding comes from, and paraphrase what the article says about the data.

Write new or interesting words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal.