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“We all agree there needed to be a list. The problem is what the (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) has put on that list,” said Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an umbrella group for dozens of community groups trying to get banks to do more work in low-income neighborhoods.

Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said his group has already submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the data.

“The OCC is supposed to work in the public’s interest,” he said, “and the American public deserves a chance to review the government’s own data and analysis before the OCC pushes ahead with new rules based on it.”

“The bank branch is to local economies what the debit card is to your wallet — a key point of contact to the financial system and the way a large part of the population accesses non-predatory financial services,” said Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

According to Jason Richardson, one of the study’s authors and the director of research for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, “We’ve also shown that revitalization of struggling neighborhoods is unevenly distributed. The big investments that fuel gentrification and cultural displacement didn’t reach most of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and rural areas.”

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition told the Washington Post that banks approved an average of $78 billion a year between 2012 and 2017 in community development loans and $55 billion a year in small business loans in low-income areas. The regulations need to be updated, but the proposed changes need to focus on fairness in lower-income lending and not allow unrelated factors to be included in CRA assessments.

Due to President Donald Trump’s proposal, The National Community Reinvestment Coalition estimates that St. Louis city and county are at risk of losing our $382 million in annual lending.

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These initiatives are outlined in the bank’s 2019-2023 Community Benefits Plan, created with input from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC).

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition told The Washington Post that banks approved an average of $78 billion a year between 2012 and 2017 in community development loans and $55 billion a year in small business loans in low-income areas.

D.C. is the most gentrified city in the United States, according to a study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition released in 2019. This is to say, about 40 percent of the city’s low-income neighborhoods experienced gentrification between 2000 and 2013. The study defines gentrification as “an influx of investment and changes to the built environment lead[ing] to rising home values, family incomes and educational levels of residents.” 

“One thing everyone was consistent on was this dollar volume metric was a bad idea,” says Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “Nonetheless the OCC has pressed forward with something that adds some bells and whistles to the one metric, but ends up as still fundamentally the driving force behind the grading scheme.”

On Wednesday, January 29, join Oscar Perry Abello, Next City’s senior economics correspondent, as he leads a virtual panel discussion on the purpose of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), how a new proposal could negatively impact low- and moderate-income individuals, and equitable ways in which the act can be improved.

“The proposed changes are substantial, dilutive and would weaken the effectiveness of the law,” said Gerron Levi, policy director of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “I can say, without equivocation, the winners would be the nation’s largest banks and the losers would be low- and moderate-income and underserved borrowers and communities.”