CRL in the News

“Mulvaney’s decision to halt the CFPB from moving forward on addressing abusive overdraft fee practices will severely impact poor families and communities of color,” said Rebecca Borne, Senior Policy Counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending in response.

Many African American households are worse off than they were 30 years ago. About eight percent of African-American homeowners lost their properties to foreclosure from 2007 to 2009, according to estimates from the Center for Responsible Lending. Only 43% of blacks owned homes in 2017, according to an annual report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Lindblad said redlining — the government-sanctioned practice of restricting home loans for people of color to certain areas — and other bad lending practices disproportionately hurt communities of color. That has resulted in more foreclosures and vacant homes in some neighborhoods. When homeownership is done right, Lindblad said the sense of stability can boost a person’s health, strengthen the surrounding community and reduce crime.

“With Wells now publicly committed to making restitution for its actions,” says Ross, “we feel now would be a good time for the CBB to get a seat at the table as well.” Members of the council, which includes representatives of church groups and organizations like the Center for Responsible Lending, seem responsive to the request, which the CBB initially presented to management last year. Until the Des Moines meeting, the company had been cool to the idea, but Wells CEO Timothy Sloan seemed open to the idea when Ross raised it at the meeting, and CBB is following up.

“Fifty years ago, Congress empowered HUD to dismantle legalized discrimination in housing to create opportunity for all as where you live is a factor in so many of life’s outcomes, including education and healthcare,” noted Nikitra Bailey, an EVP with the Center for Responsible Lending.

“California does not need a bill that would benefit the risky model of a single business,” a coalition of advocacy groups, including the Center for Responsible Lending and the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, wrote in a letter to lawmakers last month. “Until we make real progress on across-the-board small-dollar credit issues, bad actors will continue to exploit gaps in the law and peddle costly loans in our communities.”

Banks and credit card companies “have been able to comply with the legislation and provide just as much access to products as before,” Scott B. Astrada, director of federal advocacy for the Center for Responsible Lending, told Bloomberg Law.

“California does not need a bill that would benefit the risky model of a single business,” a coalition of advocacy groups, including the Center for Responsible Lending and the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, wrote in a letter to lawmakers last month. “Until we make real progress on across-the-board small-dollar credit issues, bad actors will continue to exploit gaps in the law and peddle costly loans in our communities.”

“Payday lenders and their allies in Congress have consistently tried to weaken CFPB’s authority for meritless and political reasons,” said Debbie Goldstein, the executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, in a statement. “Brett Kavanaugh is someone who’s made common cause with that effort.”

“Dodd-Frank stopped a lot of very abusive practices. The interest rates and the high fees, how loan originators were compensated — a lot of the abusive practices that really drove the [housing] crisis were addressed in the law, and one of the biggest changes was that it established the CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau],” said Melissa Stegman, a senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending.