City of Toledo, OH, January 29, 2020: Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz released the following statement today regarding proposed changes to the Community Reinvestment Act
The City of Toledo is deeply concerned with the recommended changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that will weaken banks’ responsibility to provide adequate banking services to low-to-moderate income communities. Weakening the CRA will have a disproportionate impact on communities that bear the brunt of concentrated poverty, racial segregation, declining housing stock and a lack of affordable housing. Homeownership is still the greatest opportunity for wealth accumulation. The lack of access to mortgage lending due to discriminatory barriers has a significant impact on communities of color and poor neighborhoods that are perceived to be unworthy of investment. We believe our community offers a great opportunity for families to build a good quality of life. CRA is a meaningful and crucial vehicle to create opportunity for community and economic investment.
The City of Toledo stands with civil rights and consumer protection leaders on this issue. The proposed rules weaken a compliance system that needs to be strengthened, introduce new loopholes and add confusion and inconsistency, all while failing to address the real changes needed to modernize CRA to respond to changes in our country’s demographics and changes in the structure of the banking industry. We urge the FDIC and the OCC to abandon this misguided approach and craft a new set of proposals that will ensure that all communities have access to safe, affordable credit, as the CRA intended.
