Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition, July 1, 2022, VAHC Attends the Just Economy Conference
Overall, all of this information about CRA that was conveyed through many wonderful panels and speakers at the Just Economy Conference made it clear that community reinvestment is an incredibly important component for the development of new affordable housing, and it must continue to be adequately enforced by the federal government. Luckily, there is an opportunity for NCRC, social justice-oriented nonprofits, and others to take action to guarantee this for years to come. For the first time in a number of years, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are proposing rule changes to the Community Reinvestment Act
with a public comment period that will be open until August 5th. These proposed changes seek to modernize CRA to account for how online banking can transcend a branch’s geographic reach and to allow for the collection of more data that can be used to more accurately determine CRA ratings for each bank. However, NCRC is using the comment period to advocate that the CRA go further
through various provisions such as the incorporation of a race as an explicit consideration on CRA exams and reducing a growing inflation of scores so that bank ratings are more realistic.
