Desiree Fields, Rachel Laforest, Tony Romano, Tony Roshan Samara and Rob Call
Right To The City Alliance
This new report from The Right to the City Alliance’s Homes for All Campaign examines how large, well capitalized, private equity firms, entering rental markets create the risk of a second housing bubble. The author, urban geographer Desiree Fields, demonstrates that the institutionalization of the single-family rental market benefits the same financial institutions behind the housing market crash of 2008, while disproportionately impacting low-income communities. She lays out a policy agenda that can promote greater diversity and broaden ownership of land and housing.
To protect the un-and-under-banked from excessive fees and high-cost predatory lenders, Karen Harris argues that we reinstate the US Postal Savings System.In an article for The Shriver Brief, Harris shows that the now-defunct system once provided safe banking services for immigrants and working people that private banks did not.Citing examples of successful postal banking services in other countries, Harris shows how reinstating such a system in this country could help underserved populations by providing affordable banking services, while giving the Post Office a needed boost in jobs and income.
Rebecca Loya, Alexis Mann, Janet Boguslaw and Thomas Shapiro
The present analysis draws on interviews with black and white families of diverse means to illustrate how resource differences play out in the lives of American families. We contrast the options and experiences of higher-resource families like the Barrys, who have access to two or more resources at the personal, institutional, or neighborhood levels, with those who have fewer resources, like the Meehans. This brief focuses on women’s experiences speci cally and considers how women of different racial backgrounds with various income and asset pro les manage these economic challenges.
This brief summarizes research into the theories underlying financial coaching and the effects of financial coaching on participant behaviors and outcomes. In practice, financial coaching remains an unregulated field, and individuals and organizations use the term “financial coaching” to refer to an array of interventions. This brief concentrates on coaching interventions that explicitly focus on working with clients to identify behavioral outcomes, set goals, brainstorm strategies, set concrete action plans, identify strengths and build motivation, and provide monitoring and accountability, all of which are features of a more theoretically-grounded coaching approach (Grant, Cavanagh, and Parker 2010). This brief includes literature gathered through searches encompassing briefs, reports, book chapters, academic articles, and other sources.
Jessica A. Carson, Andrew Schaefer and Marybeth J. Mattingly
University of New Hampshire
In September 2015, the Census Bureau released 2014 poverty data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the only regular source for reliably estimating child poverty in geographic areas below the state level using the official poverty measure. In this brief, we use ACS data to explore child poverty rates across the United States by region, state, and place type (rural, suburban, and city). We also examine data on children who are deeply poor (those in families with incomes below half of the poverty line), as well as low-income children (those in families with incomes less than twice the poverty line). We find that while child poverty declined nationwide between 2013 and 2014, that drop was not felt uniformly across the country: several states saw declines, a few states saw increases, and others saw no change at all. We also found substantial differences in the magnitude of change across rural places, suburbs, and cities.
This National Community Reinvestment Coalition paper advocates for the idea of “age-friendly banking,” highlighting the importance of providing effective and tailored financial products, services, and protections specifically for older adults. In the wake of the Great Recession, older adults are often susceptible to financial fraud and scams. This paper aims to expand the dialogue between community-based organizations, aging networks, and financial institutions on how to develop and implement age-friendly banking strategies and initiatives.
The Debt Resistors Operations Manual, put together by an anonymous collective of activists from Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street contains practical information, resources and tips for individuals dealing with indebtedness in the United States. Covering all aspects of the debt system — from personal debt to municipal debt — the manual shows how households, cities and countries are controlled by a system of debt.
While the proportion of Black and white households with debt are similar, more Black households experience “troublesome debt,” or difficulties with debt and bill payments. This new white paper from Prosperity Now discusses this connection between the racial wealth gap and debt, highlighting how disproportionate access to wealth building opportunities such as homeownership and credit perpetuates this disparity. The paper calls for federal reforms that would create greater income and wealth building opportunities for communities of color.
Published by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, this new report discusses the relationship between health outcomes and wealth disparities in Detroit, Michigan. The authors detail how a lack of access to safe housing and water poses the greatest health threats to residents, and call for solutions outside the realm of clinical care. While noting the necessity of Medicaid expansion, the report calls for investments in the social determinants of health—including affordable housing and expanded social services.
“America is currently forgoing an estimated 1.1 million businesses owned by people of color because of past and present discrimination,” writes Algernon Austin, author of this new report from the Center for Global Policy Solutions. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners, Austin finds that the country would produce an estimated 9 million more jobs and have $300 billion more in national income if entrepreneurship amongst people of color were proportional to their distribution in the labor force. To address this, Austin recommends creating tax credits to incentivize investments in minority-owned businesses, expanding the number of Minority Business Development Agencies, and utilizing alternative credit data for those with limited credit histories.
This new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco seeks to better understand the factors that influence and create disparities in wealth accumulation, particularly intergenerational resource transfers, historical context, and local asset markets. Researchers draw on data from the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey, the first of its kind, to assess wealth disparities among different racial and ethnic groups in Los Angeles and inform multifaceted policy solutions tailored to distinct community needs.
This white paper explains performance context analysis and explains why it is important from a community perspective. It first discusses the definition of performance context referencing CRA regulatory documents. Second, it reviews current thinking regarding the implementation of performance context analysis. While the thinking has evolved, the federal agency implementation is still centered too much on the banks and not enough on the community perspective. Third, the paper will review examples of both poor and good performance context analysis in CRA exams. Fourth, the paper will offer some examples of data analysis and community group input that provides a foundation for improved performance context analysis.
California Reinvestment Coalition, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, Empire Justice Center, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, Ohio Lending Coalition and Woodstock Institute
Ida Rademacher, Jennifer Brooks, Kasey Wiedrich, Genevieve Melford, Michelle Nguyen, Barbara Rosen, Chris Campbell, Kristin Lawton, Amy Radovich and Karen Murrell
Desiree Fields, Rachel Laforest, Tony Romano, Tony Roshan Samara and Rob Call
Right To The City Alliance
This new report from The Right to the City Alliance’s Homes for All Campaign examines how large, well capitalized, private equity firms, entering rental markets create the risk of a second housing bubble. The author, urban geographer Desiree Fields, demonstrates that the institutionalization of the single-family rental market benefits the same financial institutions behind the housing market crash of 2008, while disproportionately impacting low-income communities. She lays out a policy agenda that can promote greater diversity and broaden ownership of land and housing.
To protect the un-and-under-banked from excessive fees and high-cost predatory lenders, Karen Harris argues that we reinstate the US Postal Savings System.In an article for The Shriver Brief, Harris shows that the now-defunct system once provided safe banking services for immigrants and working people that private banks did not.Citing examples of successful postal banking services in other countries, Harris shows how reinstating such a system in this country could help underserved populations by providing affordable banking services, while giving the Post Office a needed boost in jobs and income.
Rebecca Loya, Alexis Mann, Janet Boguslaw and Thomas Shapiro
The present analysis draws on interviews with black and white families of diverse means to illustrate how resource differences play out in the lives of American families. We contrast the options and experiences of higher-resource families like the Barrys, who have access to two or more resources at the personal, institutional, or neighborhood levels, with those who have fewer resources, like the Meehans. This brief focuses on women’s experiences speci cally and considers how women of different racial backgrounds with various income and asset pro les manage these economic challenges.
This brief summarizes research into the theories underlying financial coaching and the effects of financial coaching on participant behaviors and outcomes. In practice, financial coaching remains an unregulated field, and individuals and organizations use the term “financial coaching” to refer to an array of interventions. This brief concentrates on coaching interventions that explicitly focus on working with clients to identify behavioral outcomes, set goals, brainstorm strategies, set concrete action plans, identify strengths and build motivation, and provide monitoring and accountability, all of which are features of a more theoretically-grounded coaching approach (Grant, Cavanagh, and Parker 2010). This brief includes literature gathered through searches encompassing briefs, reports, book chapters, academic articles, and other sources.
Jessica A. Carson, Andrew Schaefer and Marybeth J. Mattingly
University of New Hampshire
In September 2015, the Census Bureau released 2014 poverty data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the only regular source for reliably estimating child poverty in geographic areas below the state level using the official poverty measure. In this brief, we use ACS data to explore child poverty rates across the United States by region, state, and place type (rural, suburban, and city). We also examine data on children who are deeply poor (those in families with incomes below half of the poverty line), as well as low-income children (those in families with incomes less than twice the poverty line). We find that while child poverty declined nationwide between 2013 and 2014, that drop was not felt uniformly across the country: several states saw declines, a few states saw increases, and others saw no change at all. We also found substantial differences in the magnitude of change across rural places, suburbs, and cities.
This National Community Reinvestment Coalition paper advocates for the idea of “age-friendly banking,” highlighting the importance of providing effective and tailored financial products, services, and protections specifically for older adults. In the wake of the Great Recession, older adults are often susceptible to financial fraud and scams. This paper aims to expand the dialogue between community-based organizations, aging networks, and financial institutions on how to develop and implement age-friendly banking strategies and initiatives.
The Debt Resistors Operations Manual, put together by an anonymous collective of activists from Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street contains practical information, resources and tips for individuals dealing with indebtedness in the United States. Covering all aspects of the debt system — from personal debt to municipal debt — the manual shows how households, cities and countries are controlled by a system of debt.
While the proportion of Black and white households with debt are similar, more Black households experience “troublesome debt,” or difficulties with debt and bill payments. This new white paper from Prosperity Now discusses this connection between the racial wealth gap and debt, highlighting how disproportionate access to wealth building opportunities such as homeownership and credit perpetuates this disparity. The paper calls for federal reforms that would create greater income and wealth building opportunities for communities of color.
Published by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, this new report discusses the relationship between health outcomes and wealth disparities in Detroit, Michigan. The authors detail how a lack of access to safe housing and water poses the greatest health threats to residents, and call for solutions outside the realm of clinical care. While noting the necessity of Medicaid expansion, the report calls for investments in the social determinants of health—including affordable housing and expanded social services.
“America is currently forgoing an estimated 1.1 million businesses owned by people of color because of past and present discrimination,” writes Algernon Austin, author of this new report from the Center for Global Policy Solutions. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners, Austin finds that the country would produce an estimated 9 million more jobs and have $300 billion more in national income if entrepreneurship amongst people of color were proportional to their distribution in the labor force. To address this, Austin recommends creating tax credits to incentivize investments in minority-owned businesses, expanding the number of Minority Business Development Agencies, and utilizing alternative credit data for those with limited credit histories.
This new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco seeks to better understand the factors that influence and create disparities in wealth accumulation, particularly intergenerational resource transfers, historical context, and local asset markets. Researchers draw on data from the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey, the first of its kind, to assess wealth disparities among different racial and ethnic groups in Los Angeles and inform multifaceted policy solutions tailored to distinct community needs.
This white paper explains performance context analysis and explains why it is important from a community perspective. It first discusses the definition of performance context referencing CRA regulatory documents. Second, it reviews current thinking regarding the implementation of performance context analysis. While the thinking has evolved, the federal agency implementation is still centered too much on the banks and not enough on the community perspective. Third, the paper will review examples of both poor and good performance context analysis in CRA exams. Fourth, the paper will offer some examples of data analysis and community group input that provides a foundation for improved performance context analysis.
California Reinvestment Coalition, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, Empire Justice Center, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, Ohio Lending Coalition and Woodstock Institute
Ida Rademacher, Jennifer Brooks, Kasey Wiedrich, Genevieve Melford, Michelle Nguyen, Barbara Rosen, Chris Campbell, Kristin Lawton, Amy Radovich and Karen Murrell
