Daily Kos: Discrimination in mortgage lending persists due to Trump. Now Biden’s working to combat it

Daily Kos, June 17, 2022, Discrimination in mortgage lending persists due to Trump. Now Biden’s working to combat it

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC)—which is made up of “community reinvestment organizations; community development corporations; local and state government agencies; faith-based institutions; community organizing and civil rights groups; minority and women-owned business associations, as well as local and social service providers from across the nation”—conducted research and produced its own thorough discussion of redlining’s history and continued impact. Their study found that a full 74% of the residential areas the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC)—the federal agency that birthed redlining—deemed “hazardous” back in the 1930s are still “low-to-moderate” income now. Furthermore, just about 64% of those are predominantly “minority neighborhoods.”

It is vitally important that the administration worked with the “critical stakeholders” Cleaver cited. It must continue to do so going forward. The Trumpers, on the other hand, completely ignored community groups and civil rights organizations. Shocking, I realize. One such group, the NCRC, had stated in March that it was “pleased that the federal bank agencies will be proposing an interagency rule implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in the near future.”

In response to the new proposal issued in May, the NCRC offered praise, but also made some specific suggestions regarding areas that needed strengthening: “The agencies proposed important improvements in the CRA regulations including expansion of geographical areas on CRA exams, more data to scrutinize bank performance and increased rigor on parts of CRA exams. However, they did not sufficiently address racial inequities in the CRA reform. They were also inconsistent in addressing CRA ratings inflation.” In summary, the NCRC called the proposal “a good start,” while noting that “several improvements need to be made.” The group’s statement concluded: “This is the biggest opportunity since 1995 to update the CRA regulations in a way that significantly bolsters reinvestment in formerly redlined and underserved communities. We must help the agencies get this right.”

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