Subject: Financial Reform

  • Shelterforce Asks: Should Rep. Watt Take the Helm of the FHFA?

    As Senate Democrats and Republicans gear up to battle over President Obama's nomination of Rep. Mel Watts (D-N.C.) to replace Ed DeMarco as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, advocates, too, are debating whether the congressman from North Carolina…

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    Achieving Reinvestment: NCRC’s 2013 Award Winners

    The National Community Reinvestment Coalition presented its 2013 National Achievement Awards to leaders in expanding fair access to financial services. NCRC is an association of more than 600 community-based organizations that promote access to basic banking services, including credit and…

  • Invest in Consumers, Bolster Your Bottom Line

    The more financial coaching people receive, the more financially resilient they’ll become. That’s what a recent study conducted by NeighborWorks® America affirms. In fact, NeighborWorks found that borrowers who enrolled in its pre-mortgage purchase counseling program were one-third less likely…

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    Deflating a GOP Double Standard

    After the sequester cut teaching jobs, Head Start spots, senior food programs, and access to nutrition assistance for over half a million women and their families, the GOP revealed its brand new short-term budget bill for 2013. Buried on page…

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    Getting the Mortgage Market Back on Track

    Of all the things government can and should do about housing, creating a strong, responsive mortgage market may be more important for the future of American families, neighborhoods and cities than anything else. Over the past decade we’ve seen how…

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    Is the Mortgage Interest Deduction Vulnerable?

    Shelterforce and the National Housing Institute have been outspoken about the need to change the mortgage interest deduction — the country’s largest housing subsidy, which accrues primarily to wealthy households — for decades. But because it reaches so many people…

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    Bair:  Mortgage Crisis Shows We Need a Level Playing Field

    FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair emphasized the “common goal” that should exist between banks and consumers regarding access to credit and healthy lending for the health of consumers and banks, as well as for the entire economy. “We’ve seen what happens…

  • Can’t Sue ‘Em? You Can Move Your Money

    Local governents, frustrated (there’s an understatement for you) with the devastating effects of massive foreclosures have tried suing lenders for essentially offering defective products, and also for discriminatory treatment. Albany Law School Professor Ray Brescia argued in Shelterforce last year…

  • Senate Passes Financial Reform; NSP 3 Included

    With the Senate passing today, by a 60 to 39 margin, a major overhaul to the financial regulatory system (the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010), we’re going to keep our eye on the key provision that contains $1 billion for NSP3 and the vacant property fix, plus the $1 billion for the emergency mortgage relief program. This brings the total NSP funding to $7 billion — a number that please advocates, to be sure, but one that they, and Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and sponsor of the Financial Stability Act, say is not nearly enough to adequately address the problem on the ground. In a recent interview with Shelterforce that will be published in our upcoming issue, Frank weighed in on NSP. Here’s an excerpt (note at the time of the interview, there was $2 billion in NSP funds proposed): Shelterforce: NSP1 and NSP2, and the $2 billion more coming in regulatory reform: Do you think it’s enough? Barney Frank: No. He goes on something of a rallying cry for advocates, urging people to demand more funding for programs like NSP: “I mean, money doesn’t solve everything, but the absence of money makes solving these things almost impossible…I’d like it to be more. I’d also like us to withdraw from Iraq, but, in the current situation, $2 billion is, well, we’re fighting right now for $2 billion. more

  • What You Need To Know About Financial Reform

    Is the public in favor of regulating Wall Street? A national survey conducted in March by the nonpartisan Pew Economic Policy Group found that 68 percent of the public have an unfavorable opinion of big banks. Two-thirds of the public…

  • Showdown on Wall Street and K Street

    The shake-out of the American economy has left a handful of large banks at the pinnacle of the corporate power structure. Next week, a coalition of major community organizations, unions, and religious groups will launch a campaign to challenge the…