photo by: Douglas County GIS

Homes in a west Lawrence neighborhood are pictured in this 2016 aerial photograph from the Douglas County property viewer map.

There has been no shortage of discussion about Lawrence’s housing affordability issue. However, a new report suggests maybe one subtopic of that discussion hasn’t yet received enough attention: the particular difficulties minorities have in owning a home in Lawrence.

The latest numbers indicate Lawrence struggles mightily with that issue.

Lawrence has the second lowest minority homeownership rate of any U.S. metro with at least 100,000 people, according to a new Census-based report put out by Construction Coverage, a web-based publisher that covers the construction industry.

Further, the report found that Lawrence’s gap between the percentage of white homeowners and the percentage of minority homeowners was the sixth largest gap in the country among the 258 metro areas that were studied.

The report found that only 21.5% of minority residents in Lawrence owned their home. Only Bismarck, North Dakota, at 18%, came in with a lower rate. Additionally, the report found that homeownership among white residents in Lawrence was 35.9 percentage points higher than that for minority residents. That gap was the sixth highest among the metros studied.

I get all types of these press releases from organizations ranking cities in one way or another. Most don’t catch my eye, but this one did given Lawrence’s discussion around housing issues. I had a trusted source who is a Census expert look at the numbers too, and she found many of the same trends that the Construction Coverage report highlighted.

A natural question is why Lawrence would rank so low in minority homeownership. One answer may be Lawrence’s status as a college town. After all, if you are a student, you likely don’t even have a desire to own a home at this point, so that pushes homeownership rates down in college communities. So there may be some legitimacy to the college town idea, but it also may be a crutch for Lawrence to lean upon.

The numbers do show that some of the other communities with the lowest minority homeownership rates are big-time college towns. But those same numbers show that Lawrence is still far below those towns.

For example, Champaign-Urbana — home to the University of Illinois — ranks right below Lawrence for minority homeownership, but its rate is at 30%, 8.5 percentage points higher than Lawrence. Blacksburg, Virginia — home to Virginia Tech — is next lowest with a 33.8% minority homeownership rate. Iowa City — home to the University of Iowa — checks in next at 34.5%. State College — home to Penn State — follows at 34.6%

Another way to say this is that Lawrence not only had the second lowest minority homeownership rate in the country, but it also was one of only two cities that had a rate below 30%.

Yes, Lawrence has a small minority population compared with many communities across the U.S., but that shouldn’t play into these numbers because the report isn’t measuring the percentage of homes owned by a minority. Rather, it is measuring the percentage of minorities that own their homes.

Here’s a look at how other regional communities fared in the category of minority homeownership:

• Lawrence: 21.5%

• Iowa City: 34.5%

• St. Joseph, Missouri: 37.2%

• Lincoln, Nebraska: 37.7%

• Columbia, Missouri: 38.3%

• Omaha, Nebraska: 46.9%

• Kansas City metro: 48.7%

• Wichita: 48.9%

• Oklahoma City: 49.4%

• St. Louis: 49.5%

• Fort Collins, Colorado: 51.9%

• Fayetteville, Arkansas: 52.5%

• Topeka: 52.6%

• Colorado Springs: 59.8%

• Joplin, Missouri: 63.2%

You’ll notice some of those communities also have major colleges, including Fayetteville and Colorado Springs, which had some of the higher minority homeownership rates. Looking a little further, you could find some college towns that were true standouts in terms of minority homeownership:

Lawrence’s minority homeownership rates are important, but it would be a mistake to ignore Lawrence ownership rates for white residents. They are revealing too because they also are pretty low. Lawrence had a white homeownership rate of 57.5% according to the American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau that this report used.

That white homeownership rate ranked Lawrence seventh lowest in the country among all metro areas with at least 100,000 people. Lawrence was one of only 10 metros in the country with white homeownership rates below 60%. Here’s a look at how Lawrence compared with other cities in the region in the category of white homeownership:

• Lawrence: 57.5%

• Lincoln, Nebraska: 63.0%

• Iowa City: 64.2%

• Columbia Missouri: 64.6%

• Fort Collins, Colorado: 66.7%

• Fayetteville, Arkansas: 70.2%

• Colorado Springs: 70.6%

• Wichita: 70.7%

• Kansas City metro: 71.1%

• Oklahoma City: 71.6%

• Joplin, Missouri: 71.8%

• Omaha: 71.9%

• St. Joseph, Missouri: 71.9%

• Topeka: 72.8%

• St. Louis: 78.9%

Those numbers potentially indicate a couple of things about Lawrence: 1. We may have a larger-than-normal number of people who aren’t interested in buying a home, and/or: 2. It is tough for many types of people to afford to buy a house in Lawrence.

But, not equally tough, it would seem.

To me, the big takeaway from the numbers is how low the minority homeownership rate is. That low ownership rate creates one of the largest gaps between white and minority homeowners in the country. Again, Lawrence has the sixth largest such gap of any 100,000-plus metro in the country. Here’s how Lawrence compares with other cities in the region on that metric. The list below shows how many percentage points higher white homeownership is versus minority homeownership in each community.

• Lawrence: 35.9

• St. Joseph, Missouri: 34.7

• Iowa City: 29.7

• St. Louis: 29.4

• Columbia, Missouri: 26.3

• Lincoln, Nebraska: 25.4

• Omaha, Nebraska: 25.0

• Kansas City metro: 22.4

• Oklahoma City: 22.2

• Wichita: 21.8

• Topeka: 20.2

• Fayetteville, Arkansas: 17.8

• Fort Collins, Colorado: 14.8

• Colorado Springs: 10.8

• Joplin, Missouri: 8.6

The five towns that had higher gaps in homeowners than Lawrence were Springfield, Illinois (37.1); Jackson, Tennessee (37.8); Rocky Mount, North Carolina (37.9); Springfield, Massachusetts (38.0); and Bismarck, North Dakota (59.9)

If you are wondering whether there are communities where minority homeownership is higher than white homeownership, there are a few. There were five out of the 258 communities studied. Laredo, Texas, had the biggest gap, with a 65.3% minority homeownership rate and a 52.8% white homeownership rate.