Homeownership

Seven former bank employees and contractors have come forward with allegations that “Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the second-biggest U.S. lender, rewarded staff with cash bonuses and gift cards for meeting quotas tied to sending distressed homeowners into foreclosure.” In addition, the former employees report that they were encouraged to “improperly disqualify” borrowers from loan modifications through the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), falsify or effectively “misplace” documents, mislead borrowers on the status of their loan modification applications, and generally delay the process while raking in fees. A four-year employee explained that “loan collectors who put at least 10 customers into foreclosure, including those who were in trial modifications, were given a $500 bonus.” The employee reports paint a picture of a culture of widespread abuses across the loan modification process, and exemplify why greater federal oversight is essential to creating a financial services marketplace that is fair to consumers.

This week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its research partner the Urban Institute released a new report documenting the ongoing presence of housing discrimination against people of color in the U.S. rental and home buying markets. The lengthy report and its more digestible executive summary are available here for download while a press release from HUD is available here.

In short, the report finds that violations of the U.S. fair housing laws remain all too common and contribute to broader race-based inequalities. As HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said at the report release event, documenting the prevalence and dynamics of housing discrimination is an important part of ensuring that our country is living up to the ideals of equality of opportunity that we aspire to uphold. Donovan points out that while housing discrimination has become more “subtle,” this does not diminish its severity as a driver of inequity. The numbers in the report may seem abstract, but they represent, he said, families “denied a fair shot at the American dream.”

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include housing, health and wealth, financial services, and unemployment.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include inequality, retirement, the workforce, and financial services.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include housing, retirement, wealth disparities, employment, and government assistance.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include retirement security, racial wealth disparities, housing, and homelessness.

The Urban Institute has a new report out today that looks at America's wide(ning) racial wealth gap: research shows that while white Americans have on average double the income of black Americans, they have more than six times the wealth. The report demonstrates that wealth inequality is actually increasing, not decreasing over time. Watch Signe-Mary McKernan, one of the report's authors, explain the dynamics of the gap in this short, engaging video:

The real problem in the long term, McKernan points out, is that racial wealth disparities limit access to economic opportunity. Wealth provides the foundation on which families enter and remain in the middle class. As the report explains, "traditionally powerful wealth-building vehicles" such as retirement savings or homeownership have near and long-term benefits: they help families weather economic downturns and offer future generations a stepping stone to greater economic success.

The authors are quick to note that the recent Great Recession did not cause these racial wealth gaps, but did exacerbate them.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include financial security, housing, gender equality, the safety net, and workforce and consumer protection.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include housing, unemployment, financial products, taxes, and inequality.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include personal finance and retirement saving, inequality, government assistance, and financial services.