Sarah Buffaloboy

n Wayne County, which includes Detroit, census tracts where more than half of the people are minorities contain 26% of the county’s bank branches while housing 45% of the county population, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit focused on community wealth-building.

Industry critics say that reflects the need for banking agencies to toughen CRA standards. Bank examiners should expect the institutions they oversee to make strong commitments to help underserved communities during the pandemic, suggested Josh Silver, a senior adviser at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which focuses on ending discrimination in lending.

Sabrina Terry is the Director of Strategy and Development at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Jason Richardson is Director of Research at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

The OCC also addressed concerns that the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, acommunity advocacy organization, raised about SoFi’s plan for compliance with the low-incomelending requirements of the Community Reinvestment Act. While a comment letter signed by NCRC and other community groups had argued that this plan was insufficiently comprehensive,the agency said it “does not expect a bank to have a fully developed plan at this stage.”

n Wayne County, which includes Detroit, census tracts where more than half of the people are minorities contain 26% of the county’s bank branches while housing 45% of the county population, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit focused on community wealth-building.

It’s hard to live in any lower-income neighborhood that is adjacent to or within a major city without being faced with the prospect of gentrification. According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, New York had one of the highest rates of gentrification and displaced black Americans between 2000 and 2013. Higher rents and property taxes—the hallmarks of gentrification—continue to price many Black and Latino people out of their neighborhoods.

A 2018 study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) found that “while overt redlining is illegal today, having been prohibited under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, its enduring effect is still evident in the structure of U.S. cities.” Access to credit is “an underpinning of economic inclusion and wealth-building in the U.S.,” the report said.

Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the advocacy group National Community Reinvestment Coalition, has liaised with the Fed on CRA-related issues over the course of his 14 years with the organization. He notes that there has been a change in tone under the leadership of former Fed Chair Janet Yellen, and now Powell. “They are more focused than they ever have before on racial income inequality,” Van Tol told Yahoo Finance.

Local grantees include the National Community Reinvestment Coalition Community Development Fund, which received $5.5 million to offer affordable loans and other support to entrepreneurs locally and nationally, many of whom will be people of color.

According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Asian Americans, on average, beat out the national average on certain metrics:
Asian Americans have the lowest unemployment rate across any household of color with a 3.3% unemployment rate vs the national average of 4.1% in Q1 2020.
53% of Asian Americans have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33.4% national average in 2017.
In 2017, the household median income of Asian Americans is $87,194, compared to the national median income of $63,179.
Comparatively, here are some stats for Black Americans, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition made those points in its letter to lawmakers, co-signed by the AFL-CIO, SEIU and others. It also said the coronavirus pandemic exposed continuing redlining, and that the Trump comptroller’s rule would have only made a bad situation worse. Senators agreed.

“For decades, redlining and government bank sanctions–you know how they started,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who would take over the chair of the Senate panel dealing with banking and housing issues if Democrats win Senate control.

“It was the Black codes after Reconstruction. Then it was Jim Crow. Then it was redlining. Now it is locking in discrimination by Trump nominees who have had another Trump appointee working to make it harder to invest.”

“For decades, redlining and government- and bank-sanctioned discrimination left parts of this country–often Black and Brown communities [and] often rural areas…with virtually no investment from banks. All kinds of people had dreams to start businesses, to build houses, to grow and support their communities, but they couldn’t get the loans to do it.”

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition revealed in its latest study that although the nation’s capital is ranked 13th on the list of “most intensely gentrified” cities from 2013 to 2017 (a drop from ranking first from 2000 to 2012), gentrification remains intense, as community organizations argue the rapid development D.C. has endured continues to push low-income residents out of their communities.

Banks are twice as likely to provide business loans to white applicants than Black ones, and three times as likely to have follow-up meetings with white applicants than more qualified Black applicants (A 2017 study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition). Lenders deny mortgages for Black applicants at a rate 80% higher than that of white applicants, according to an analysis of the most recent data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

“The beginning and end of this for me is that the impacts of poverty in my community and across the country are so devastating to our communities and to our residents that we have to find some way to lift people up and provide them with the income that they need,” said Satya Rhodes-Conway, mayor of Madison, Wis., at a virtual event held by MGI and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Madison is currently exploring starting its first guaranteed income pilot program.