A look at Minnesota's housing racial gap

Despite a new study putting the Twin Cities market as one of the best for homeowners and buyers, there's still a racial disparity in home ownership.

More from the Star Tribune:

Despite the economic recovery, 38 percent of minorities owned a home in Minnesota in 2011, compared to 77.5 percent of whites, according to census data analyzed by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. Census figures show Minnesota's gap in homeownership between whites and communities of color is the worst in the 50 states.

State anti-discrimination officials and civil rights advocates say the drop in homeownership among minorities is the consequence of bad lending practices during the housing boom that made them especially vulnerable to foreclosure. Many of those practices have been outlawed, but minority homeownership hasn't bounced back because many of those affected have also lost jobs or fallen victim to mortgage modification schemes.