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.”