How Tax Assessments are Racist
Between biased property appraisals that undervalue Black-owned properties and biased tax assessments that levy an unfair burden, homeowners of color are flanked by a double-whammy of racism.
Say It With Your Chest: Race Matters in Lending
The Community Reinvestment Act was created to address racist lending practices, but it doesn’t specify race. Special purpose credit programs could help.
Landlords Don’t Have to Control Security Deposits
The UK saw a dramatic change in landlord behavior once security deposits were put into the hands of a third party.
Catch-22: The Tortuous Path to Home Repair Help
Mary Stimpson was supposed to be a high-priority candidate for assistance repairing her roof and furnace. Instead she languished for years without heat until some advocates went above and beyond.
Flooded: How Natural Disasters Lead to Predatory Lending in the Rio Grande Valley
The devastation that communities in the Rio Grande Valley experience is twofold: the initial destruction of the floods and the cycle of debt and poverty as a result of predatory loans.
Valuing Black Lives and Black Cities
Andre M. Perry’s Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities reveals the web of historical and contemporary socioeconomic barriers that maintain the racial wealth divide and does this through personal narrative, history, and an exploration of a wide array of social issues.
Q: Who Enforces CRA?
Why are there three different agencies enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA? Who does each agency enforce it on?
Stop Talking About the Racial Wealth Gap
It may seem counterintuitive, but in order to close the wealth gap, we must shift our focus from the gap itself to the policies, conditions, and systems that spawned it.
Why the Community Reinvestment Act Must Be Expanded Broadly Throughout the Financial Industry
The financial industry has been one of the main perpetrators of racial discrimination. It should be obligated to serve all communities, particularly communities of color.
Making Loans to Help Formerly Incarcerated People Get Back on Their Feet
CDFIs and nonprofits are figuring out how to help formerly incarcerated people build credit histories and access capital in order to get their lives going.
Financial Coaches, Let’s Be Upfront About Economic Structural Racism
Financial education messaging is too often presented as if individual behavior and attitudes are the cause of our growing economic challenges rather than our social, economic, and political systems.
Creative Ways to Finance Agriculture
In Montana, small family farms are disappearing at an alarming rate, and farmers and ranchers are unable to compete with giant agriculture mergers. But there are several ways to help improve the farmland accessibility issue.
Building Prosperity—A Review of ‘The Making of a Democratic Economy’
A review of "The Making of a Democratic Economy: Building Prosperity for the Many, Not Just the Few," by Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard
There Is an Emergency at the Border. It’s Poverty.
Targeted investments that address persistent poverty are necessary and should supersede financial support of a border wall.
Can Using a Racial Equity Lens Increase Capital in Communities of Color?
If CDFIs adopted traditional appraisal standards to determine loan amounts, they'd make very few loans in the communities they were founded to serve.
Can Estate Planning be Used to Help Preserve Economic Assets in Low-Income Communities?
Estate planning should be employed as part of a broader plan of preservation of wealth and assets in communities of color.
Millennials and the Affordability Crisis: A Review of Generation Priced Out
As tenant struggles become a bigger focus of activist recruitment, Randy Shaw’s new book, Generation Priced Out, is an essential organizing guide.
An Opportunity for Housing Providers to Help Renters Build Credit
Of the 987 low-income renters whose rents were reported through a pilot program, 79 percent saw their VantageScore increase by an average of 23 points, and 15 percent moved into a lower credit score risk tier.
A Message for CFPB’s Kathy Kraninger: Stand with People, Not Profits
The CFPB's new head must unequivocally stand with low-income communities of color and restore public trust.
Small Investments Can Yield Big Returns. Review of A Few Thousand Dollars
Over a dozen stories of how Americans from all different backgrounds have managed to leverage a few thousand dollars to lead lives that have helped thousands of other people, and strategies to reinvigorate a movement to influence asset building policy nationally.