In the News

A 2017 study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that banks were twice as likely to provide business loans to White applicants than Black ones and three times as likely to have follow-up meetings with white applicants than more qualified Black ones.

Neighborhoods in the South End, Jamaica Plain, and Dorchester have seen the largest declines in people of color, which the NCRC states is most likely a result of an “influx of young white professionals that parallels the gentrification and displacement of communities of color.”

The parent company of First Merchants Bank announced last month plans to five new branches or loan production offices in low- to moderate-income communities as part of a $1.4 billion community investment plan with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

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The data makes it “difficult to assess who is getting the loans,” said Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit focused on ending discrimination in lending, housing and business. “The program design and data collection were so loose it allowed for potential gaming around who [banks] were serving.”

“There was a stark racial divide in these communities as well, with gentrifying neighborhoods overwhelmingly populated by people of color,” researchers said.

“Gentrification remains a significant threat to minority and low- and moderate-income families in some of the largest and most prosperous parts of the country,” researchers stated.

Providing financial backing could be a boost for Black-owned restaurants, especially because banks are twice as likely to offer a business loan to a white applicant than a Black applicant, according to a 2017 study from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

On a national scale, gentrification disproportionately took place in neighborhoods where White people are the minority, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s research. People of color made up 77% of the population in gentrifying neighborhoods.

A study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that 6,000 bank branches closed across the country from 2008 to 2016, with the largest decline — 25 percent — coming in Baltimore County.

A new study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found gentrification is not only growing but impacting more neighborhoods in the city.

“Access to credit is not equitable,” said Ibijoke Akinbowale, director of the housing counseling network for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) in Washington, D.C. One way to expand credit access is using rental history to build a credit profile, Akinbowale suggested. “People can have years and years of on-time rental history that’s not reported on your credit.”

A new study from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), found Denver is the second-most gentrified city in America. Katie Johnston reports.

“Some cities were booming, and that created unique and difficult challenges for longtime residents who were priced out and pushed out, but in most of the country, lower-income residents and neighborhoods suffered from a lack of investment, stagnant economies and fewer opportunities to accumulate personal wealth,” said Jason Richardson, NCRC director of research and evaluation, and one of the lead authors of the report.

The report, published by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, used data from the U.S. Census Bureau to rank cities on gentrification during a five-year period ending in 2017.