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Financial System
“Income is how you get out of poverty; assets are how you stay out.” How do we build policies, programs, and products that reduce systematic inequality and advance financial security for all?
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When the Feds Step Back on Fair Housing, Can States Step Up?
It's not new for states and localities to have their own fair housing and community reinvestment measures—but as the federal government backs away from enforcement, their versions may become more important.
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Senate Passes Financial Reform; NSP 3 Included
With the Senate passing today, by a 60 to 39 margin, a major overhaul to the financial regulatory system (the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010), we’re going to […]
What You Need To Know About Financial Reform
Is the public in favor of regulating Wall Street? A national survey conducted in March by the nonpartisan Pew Economic Policy Group found that 68 percent of the public have […]
Showdown on Wall Street and K Street
The shake-out of the American economy has left a handful of large banks at the pinnacle of the corporate power structure. Next week, a coalition of major community organizations, unions, […]
CRA Modernization: A Critical Moment for Underserved Neighborhoods
The Community Reinvestment Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act hold great promise for the creation of a more financially inclusive nation, but both depend on critical “moments in time” in Congress that will determine whether they become good laws or are weakened beyond recognition
The Continued Importance of Fair Lending in the Age of Obama
Housing discrimination continues to plague the market, as does the myth that the housing crisis resulted from extending homeownership and home mortgage credit to historically underserved groups: minority families. Even with the Obama administration’s Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan and, within that, the Making Home Affordable program, minority groups continue to suffer ongoing discrimination and fair housing violations.
Brave New World for Nonprofits
The current “bathtub recession” poses a drowning hazard for community development and housing groups, as philanthropic giving shrinks and foundations look beyond nonprofits for solutions to social problems.
The Housing Change We Need
The foreclosure crisis has pushed the envelope so far, it’s left an opening where we can start building a real national housing policy.
Food Banks: Another Crisis Casualty?
Last week, when a prominent and long-standing central New Jersey soup kitchen went to the newspapers as a last resort to inform the public that demand was up, donations were […]
Discouraging the Voter
We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again, but, in Michigan—which is shaping up to be a crucial swing state in the presidential contest—we’re already seeing a mounting campaign […]
Breaking Asset Poverty: Better Homeownership—and More
Rather than abandoning homeownership as an asset-building strategy the next administration must pursue alternative strategies: bringing back “good homeownership,” supporting quality affordable rental housing, and developing other ways to help families of modest means invest for themselves and their future.
Border Patrol
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released Income, Earnings, and Poverty Data from the 2007 American Community Survey, and with it announced a new class of America’s poorest big cities: Toledo, […]
Spitzer Signs CDFI Law
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in July signed into law authorization to create the nation’s first State Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) program. The as-yet unfunded program is designed to […]