Homeownership under siege: Who will have access to mortgages in the future?

By Martin Eakes, Think about the most prosperous and stable families you know. They might not be rich, but they’ve been lucky enough to keep their jobs. They are healthy and have health insurance. They live in a safe neighborhood. They have access to high quality schools, they can prepare their children...

July 1st, 2011 | Featured, Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

Fannie, Freddie, and shrinking cities

Cleveland and other cities that have suffered sustained disinvestment over the last 30 years face unique challenges and opportunities from the prospect of federal housing finance reform. As the federal government transforms its role in the mortgage market, it must develop structures that both enhance...

June 30th, 2011 | Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

Proposed mortgage standard would have discriminatory impact

Whether or not one believes that the Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) should be narrowly defined or more broadly construed is an important question to resolve. However, a key concern of the civil rights community is that no matter whether QRM risk retention represents a very narrow space so that...

June 30th, 2011 | Featured, Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

The real moral hazard at stake

By Tim Lilienthal, Bank Accountability Campaign Coordinator for PICO National Network, Last summer, Ray Mercado and his wife began to struggle to keep up with their mortgage payments on their home in Orlando, Florida. Like responsible homeowners, they reached out to their bank, J.P. Morgan Chase. ...

June 30th, 2011 | Economics, Featured, Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

Hefty down payments block path to homeownership for communities of color

Cedric Ricks, Communications Associate, National Fair Housing Alliance, Every family should have a chance at achieving the cornerstone of the American Dream – homeownership in a safe neighborhood of choice. But the path to success is destined to hit a dead end for millions in the American middle...

June 29th, 2011 | Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

Finishing what Dodd-Frank started: Why housing finance reform still matters

Megan Haberle, The Opportunity Agenda While the subprime mortgage rupture and the foreclosure crisis have been making headlines for several years now, steep and unequal barriers to sustainable lending have characterized the housing landscape for decades. Minority and low-income communities were targeted...

June 28th, 2011 | Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

And the winners are…

Jillian Olinger, Research Associate with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity In housing finance, we’ve run the privatization scenario—we’ve seen it at work, and we’ve seen it fail miserably. This housing and credit crisis was twenty-plus years in the making, with its roots...

June 28th, 2011 | Housing, Racial Equity | Read More

Learning from the past: How to remake the secondary mortgage market

The American dream of homeownership did not magically emerge after World War II from some invisible hand of the market. The readily available, low downpayment, thirty-year mortgage that flooded the market with credit in the 40s and 50s was the result of a series of government policies, including those...

June 28th, 2011 | Featured, Housing, Racial Equity | Read More