It’s a not-so-wonderful life for low-income Fresnans priced out of decent housing

Every December millions of us watch as a crowd rushes into George Bailey’s living room to stuff cash into a basket until it overflows, saving this unlikely movie hero from ruin and — unlikelier still — a home loan association from insolvency.

Rated by the American Film Institute as our country’s most inspirational movie, for today’s viewer “It’s a Wonderful Life” is as much a reality check as nostalgic escape.

Set in 20th century America’s first few decades, an eerily familiar, tumultuous era with a boom and bust economy, pandemic, poor health care, high unemployment, housing crisis and war, the primary action occurs in the late 1930s. Banks then were still known to collapse and depositors’ money lost. Some 5,000 savings and loan associations failed that decade.

The New Deal’s National Housing Act of 1934 created modern home mortgages and federal guarantees for loans and deposits. Protections taken for granted today, these were new concepts that took years to spread, but virtually every non-white person in America was officially written out of the housing programs until 1968.

An NPR report on author Richard Rothstein’s 2017 book, “The Color of Law,” noted, “At the same time, the FHA was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites — with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans.”

Though advocating for justice and fairness, Capra ignores the official segregation of the day and perpetuates negative stereotypes of Blacks and immigrants. Women in this overtly patriarchal time are largely confined to domestic roles, and the source of Bailey’s financial troubles is an alcoholic Irishman, his Uncle Billy.

Despite these handicaps, the movie works at a fundamental storytelling level and, with a healthy dose of forbearance, serves as an important reminder of Americans’ commitments to one another.

Watching our reborn hero stride home through the snow, guardian angel message received, purpose in life renewed, the Hollywood ending always elicits a surge of hope in our higher angels.

The story’s central struggle is between idealistic young entrepreneur Bailey and greedy landlord “Old Man Potter” who dominates the town’s bankers, business owners and politicians.

Bailey wants to build affordable housing through the member-run savings and loan he manages. Potter opposes him, arguing the poor are “rabble” who deserve to pay exorbitant rents in his tenements.

Regrettably, Fresno — America —has seen few George Baileys, but no shortage of Old Man Potters.

Black Americans have been hurt most of all. The February 2020 report Explaining the Black-White Homeownership Gap found that between 2000-17 fewer than one in four Black families in Fresno owned a home, lowest in the nation.

And the hurdles to securing financing are still unfair, according to the authors of The Unequal Costs of Black Home Ownership, an October 2020 study of key indicators in New York. They found large disparities in mortgage rates, refinancing costs, and insurance rates.

Fresno needs a George Bailey moment now more than ever.

We must find new ways to help those who have been excluded for generations from home ownership and are now struggling to find safe shelter during the Trump-fueled pandemic.

Let’s see buyers financed — and struggling owners refinanced — for everything from collectives and co-housing to condominiums and single family residences.

Yes, the Old Man Potters of the world make less money that way, but affordable homes of all types would bring Fresno improved stability and prosperity. This city deserves a George Bailey-inspired program with a vision of people at the bottom of the economic ladder as property owners.

Fresno might even earn its wings in the process.