Climatewire: Disaster loans foster disparities in Black communities

Climatewire, June 30, 2020: Disaster loans foster disparities in Black communities

The SBA does not track the race of people who apply for disaster loans.

That policy prevents the agency from detecting — and fixing — racial disparities, according to researchers.

It’s also an anomaly because the SBA collects and publishes race data for other loan programs.

“You’d think that absolutely they’d be collecting race data on that,” said Bruce Mitchell, a senior research analyst at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, referring to the disaster loan program.