In 1989, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Jack Kemp was in full boosterism mode.

Speaking at a national housing convention shortly after his swearing in, Kemp, a former US representative and NFL quarterback, sung the praises of programs that allowed public housing tenants to purchase their buildings and become homeowners.

For Kemp, these “urban homesteaders,” mostly low-income black women, proved that “poor folks can become managers, producers, entrepreneurs . . . if only government helps clear obstacles.” Homeownership transformed welfare recipients into workers and taxpayers by harnessing “the greatest engine of growth ever devised — entrepreneurial free enterprise.” HUD’s small-scale experiments in resident ownership, Kemp insisted, represented “one of the most dynamic movements in America since Rosa Parks moved to the front of the bus and helped launch a crusade.” After all, “equal access to homeownership was what the American dream was all about.”