Letters to Congress

With a new chairman taking the helm of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Center for Responsible Lending joined with more than a dozen other organizations in calling for the FDIC to "stop permitting its supervised institutions to front for predatory lenders evading state interest rate limits."

Letter to the CFPB from 79 consumer, housing, civil rights, legal services, faith, community, small business, and financial organizations groups regarding supervision and enforcement of fintech products and fee models that threaten to evade credit, consumer protection, and fair lending laws.

The National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients) and the Center for Responsible Lending wrote to the CFPB to express serious concerns about two actions that the CFPB took a year ago under Director Kathy Kraninger finding that certain earned wage access (EWA) products are not “credit” under the Truth in Lending Act. These actions and the legal reasoning underlying them have the potential to open up huge loopholes in our lending and even fair lending laws. They urge the CFPB to regulate fee-based EWA products as credit. The CFPB should rescind or significantly revise the...

The CFPB should rescind the Bureau’s November 2020 EWA Advisory Opinion or to revise its unsound reasoning to prevent evasions of credit laws. The CFPB should also revisit the December 2020 Compliance Assistance Sandbox Approval Order regarding PayActiv for the same reason, and to order PayActiv to cease misusing the order. We also urge the Bureau to eliminate or significantly alter the “innovation” programs adopted in the last few years, which have resulted in a secretive, one-sided process for industry to seek exemptions from or skewed interpretations of critical consumer protection laws...

Congress cannot miss this once-in-a-generation opportunity to expand homeownership and create racial justice and equity. Targeted DPA is one of the most cost-effective strategies to shrink disparities in wealth and narrow the homeownership gap.1 More than half a million Black and Latino families could become first-generation homeowners thanks to this program even if funded at $30 billion over ten years. In this case, DPA would help 288,208 Black families; 223,649 Latino; 88,000 Native American, Asian American, and Pacific Islander families; and 249,398 white families achieve homeownership.

From the opening paragraph of the letter: On behalf of the undersigned civil rights, consumer protection, and housing policy organizations, we write to urge your continued prioritization of the housing-related provisions in the upcoming reconciliation package. These provisions are a down payment on this Administration's commitment to addressing long-standing inequities in our housing system and addressing the worsening racial wealth gap exacerbated by the nation's housing crisis.

From the letter to Acting Director Shalanda Young, Office of Management and Budget We the undersigned civil rights and consumer advocacy organizations are writing in response to the Office of Management and Budget’s May 5, 2021, Request for Information on Methods and Leading Practices for Advancing Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through Government. We applaud the OMB for seeking input on the critically-important topic of advancing equity in government. Our organizations believe that the responses below will help inform the OMB’s policies.

From the letter to Secretary Marcia L. Fudge: On behalf of the clients and communities we represent, the 155 undersigned organizations are writing regarding the FHA foreclosure moratorium and the deadline for FHA borrowers to access COVID-19 forbearance plans, both of which expire on June 30, 2021, pursuant to Mortgagee Letter 2021-05. We urge HUD to extend the foreclosure moratorium and the deadline to access forbearance plans to August 31, 2021, for forward mortgages, and to extend this deadline to December 31, 2021, for Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs, or reverse mortgages).

The coalition of signatories to the letter consists of 325 groups, including civil rights, community, consumer, faith, housing, labor, legal services, senior rights, small business, student lending, and veterans organizations. The letter states that “[t]he rule replaces the longstanding ‘true lender’ anti-evasion doctrine with a ‘fake lender’ rule that allows lenders charging rates of 179% or higher to evade state and voter-approved interest rate caps merely by putting a bank’s name on the paperwork – just as payday lenders were doing in the early 2000s.”

Over 60 community development, civil rights, and small business groups are urging swift extension of the Paycheck Protection Program by Congress. The extension should not preclude any necessary SBA rulemaking authority. The letter also flags the continued need to make the recent change for Schedule C filers retroactive.