Have the Mortgage Settlements Left Communities of Color Behind?

By Janet Murguía, NCLR; Marc H. Morial, National Urban League; and Lisa Hasegawa, National CAPACD

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Photo: Jeffry Turner

This February marks the one-year anniversary of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement made with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Financial. Since then, the banks have barreled through their obligations at a rapid clip, leaving us with some concerns.
To explore the settlement’s progress, the Alliance for Stabilizing Our Communities, a partnership between the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, hosted a summit featuring Joseph A. Smith Jr., an independent monitor of the national mortgage settlement.

On the heels of the monitor’s third report released last week, this summit examined how the national mortgage settlement has been implemented and the ways in which it has affected communities of color.

Families from across the country shared their personal stories of trying to remain in their homes (see video below). This conversation revealed troubling questions about the extent to which communities of color—those hit hardest by the housing crisis—receive relief through this settlement.

When announced last year, the $25 billion agreement held promise that families across the country would see relief. Indeed, it was a major victory for struggling homeowners who had fallen victim to predatory lending and wrongful foreclosures. But one year later, the gaps in the implementation of the settlement are becoming clear.

Read the full article at National Journal Next America.

 

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