Tag: cra

Who is responsible for evaluating whether groups adhere to promises made in a community benefits agreement (CBA)? Is there any recourse for those who don’t get what they were promised? And what lessons can we take away from the KeyBank CBA?

Over the past couple of years, community development corporations have been popping up in sometimes-unexpected places across the country. Will this increased interest in CDCs last, or is it a trend that will end when the money runs out?

When wealthy investors treat homes like poker chips, it is the tenants who end up losing. How do we interrupt the vicious cycle of speculation and displacement?

Public comment is open through Aug. 5 on proposed Community Reinvestment Act rule changes. They are worlds better than the Trump-era proposal. Why are some advocates still disappointed?

The Community Reinvestment Act was created to address racist lending practices, but it doesn’t specify race. Special purpose credit programs could help.

Congress has an opportunity it must not squander to acknowledge the racial inequity built into our failing infrastructure and put into operation the promise of equity in Biden’s infrastructure plans.

Why are there three different agencies enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA? Who does each agency enforce it on?

All banking activities, regardless of whether they benefit middle- and upper-income or low- and moderate-income people and communities, could count in the next round of CRA exams. This would further disadvantage communities that are already disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Congressional leaders and community advocates are calling on HUD and financial regulators to suspend non-essential rulemaking. HUD appears to refuse.

Investments and funding motivated by the Community Reinvestment Act are more foundational to the work of community developers than is often discussed. But if regulations change the incentives for banks, the effects on communities will be dramatic.

In an attempt to make compliance easier for banks, regulators are proposing to incentivize the very thing the Community Reinvestment Act was written to fight.

These writings suggest that careful reform of CRA regulations can build upon the progress in lending and investing if the reforms are incremental instead of “transformational." 

The Community Reinvestment Act regulations should be recrafted to incentivize investments in underserved and economically distressed communities, many of which are rural.

A significant reduction in attention paid to home mortgage lending on CRA exams would be neither economically efficient nor equitable.

Despite a CRA exam pass rate of 98 percent, the major thrust of bank comments is that they want easier exams with fewer moving parts and less uncertainty.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have offered contrasting visions for the future of CRA. How do they differ, and what would the implications for historically disinvested communities be?

Banks enjoy consumer and taxpayer-funded privileges, such as deposit insurance, and not too long ago, subsidized trillion-dollar bailouts. It’s not too much to insist that they invest a fair share of those dollars back into all of our communities.

The audacious and callous decisions leading to the tragedy in Flint, Michigan are cruel and beyond comprehension. What is needed is an all-out effort...

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

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.