EP 893 A Little Discussed Law Still Hard at Work to Expand Home Ownership in America

The U.S. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)in 1977 with the key objective of ending redlining, the decades-old practice of neighborhood discrimination by banks against African Americans and others based on race and income.  The race-based rejection of loans to creditworthy residents of redlined neighborhoods delayed the American dream of homeownership for generations.  Our guest, Josh Silver, author of “Ending Redlining Through a Community-Centered Reform of the Community Reinvestment Act” offers us a comprehensive analysis of a half century of CRA-related legislation and banking regulation which is a bulwark of tangible differences in communities like Baltimore, Philadelphia and Birmingham.  And while he feels changes need to be made to modernize CRA in an era of online lending and continued racial wealth gaps, his defense of the measure is full-throated almost 50 years since its passage.

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