Synopsis: Since 1995, the federal government has spent nearly $40 billion and provided trillions of dollars worth of insurance guarantees to lenders to promote homeownership, especially among communities of color. The infusion of money boosted homeownership rates slightly over the decades, but the ongoing national foreclosure crisis is wiping out all of those gains.

Timeline of homeownership promotion  --- 

1995
President Bill Clinton's National Homeownership Strategy aimed to create 8 million new homeowners by 2000 through an "unprecedented collaboration of private and public housing industry

organizations." The program was going to "help moderate-income families who pay high rents but haven't been able to save enough for a down payment; to help lower-income, working families who are ready to assume the responsibilities of homeownership but are held back by mortgage costs that are just out of reach; (and to) help families who have historically been excluded from homeownership."

At the 1995 ceremony announcing the plan, Clinton's rhetoric was almost metaphysical: Homes were more than bricks and mortar. They were part of the intangible promise of America.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development produced an urban policy brief the same year that took a hard look at the pros and cons of homeownership. Homeownership could be a key builder of wealth, but low-income and minority families were particularly "vulnerable to economic downturns that can result in job loss and, eventually, foreclosure."

1999
Ameriquest became the first subprime lender to have its loans financed by Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association). The lender that pioneered "no-document" loans eventually settled for $325 million with several attorneys general over charges of predatory lending, in 2006. Ameriquest closed in 2008.

2002
By 2002, the administration had changed hands, but the American-dream language was still going strong.

"We must begin to close this homeownership gap by dismantling the barriers that prevent minorities from owning a piece of the American dream," said President George W. Bush. Building on Clinton's goal seven years earlier, Bush set out to create 5.5 million new minority homeowners by the end of decade.

From 2002 to 2006, the administration spent $412 million on its American Dream Downpayment Initiative to help first-time homebuyers with costs associated with down payments. And more than $440 billion was committed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) and the other government-backed mortgage players, targeted toward making loans available to minority homeowners.

Mortgage lenders jumped on the bandwagon, ramping up lending to communities of color -- never mind that the loans were often high cost and packed with provisions like balloon payments and adjustable rates that turned them into ticking time bombs.

2003
Angelo Mozilo, head of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, explained his company's purpose:

"We wanted to make the American dream of homeownership something tangible -- something to which people could do much more than just aspire. We wanted to prove that our company could and would succeed by offering home loans to hard-working families -- of all races and of all ethnic backgrounds," Mozilo said.

Mozilo also played a unique role in the financial crisis: His company made nearly $100 billion in subprime loans between 2005 and 2007, more than any other lender. Mozilo paid $67.5 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010, to settle charges of insider trading, misleading investors and disclosure violation.

2005
Although no one knew it at the time, 2005 marked the high-water mark of American homeownership. The national rate of homeownership was 69 percent. Some 76 percent of white Americans owned a home, compared to 49 percent of black Americans and 48 percent of Hispanic Americans.

2008
Barack Obama referenced the American dream in his first speech as president, in Chicago's Grant Park, on Nov. 6, 2008.

"This is our moment," he said. "This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream…”

2009
A year later, Obama invoked the dream again -- three times in one speech -- this time, in the context of exploding foreclosures. As he announced the creation of a $75 billion plan to address the housing crisis, he noted that "the American dream is being tested by a home mortgage crisis that not only threatens the stability of our economy but also the stability of families and neighborhoods.

2011
Despite more than 15 years of commitments to the American dream, almost all of the gains in homeownership made since Clinton launched his plan have been erased. Nearly a quarter of Americans owed more on their homes than they were worth in the first quarter of 2011. For underwater borrowers, their homes are not building household wealth, but draining it. Fewer Americans own homes now than in 1998.