Page 2 The Skanner March 14, 2018
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Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
Opinion
Access to Safe, Decent and Affordable Housing Threatened
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n recent weeks, threats to
the nation’s housing finance
system have emerged. At
the center of the controver-
sy are two key issues: the obli-
gation of mortgage lenders to
ensure broad mortgage credit
for all credit-worthy borrow-
ers, and secondly, whether
the nation will enforce its
own laws banning unlawful
discrimination.
On Feb. 2, a leaked Senate
proposal to overhaul the sec-
ondary mortgage market’s
government-sponsored en-
terprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac, would drop
important access and afford-
ability provisions that now
govern the system.
For example, the GSEs now
are required to always serve
all markets, as well as have
in place affordable housing
goals.
The proposal from U.S. Sen-
ators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
and Mark Warner (D-Va.) was
quickly and unanimously
rejected by a broad coalition
of civil rights and housing
advocates that included: the
Lawyers’ Committee for Civ-
il Rights Under Law, Lead-
ership Conference on Civil
and Human Rights, NAACP,
UnidosUS (formerly the Na-
tional Council of La Raza),
National Coalition for Asian
Pacific American Community
Development, National Fair
Housing Alliance, National
Community
Reinvestment
Coalition, National Urban
League, and the Center for Re-
sponsible Lending (CRL).
“Ten years after the 2008
housing crisis, it is disheart-
ening to turn the secondary
Charlene
Crowell
NNPA
Columnist
mortgage market back over
to Wall Street,” wrote the co-
alition. “Who can forget the
7.8 million completed home
foreclosures and trillions of
dollars in lost family wealth?”
“Many Americans still face
immense housing challeng-
es,” the leaders continued.
“
This draft
isn’t even
close to a
solution that
works for
families who
hope to buy
homes
“This ill-conceived approach
places the risk on the backs of
hardworking families, who al-
ready rescued the big banks.”
The draft legislation also
fell short for Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a
member of the Senate Com-
mittee on Banking, Housing,
and Urban Affairs.
“I appreciate the dedication
Senators Warner and Corker
have shown to address this
critical issue, but this draft
isn’t even close to a solution
that works for families who
hope to buy homes, said War-
ren. “This bill would end up
creating more problems than
it solves.”
As early as 2008, Congress
moved swiftly to enact the
Housing and Economic Recov-
ery Act. This bipartisan legis-
lation provided strong regula-
tory oversight of the housing
finance system and brought
forward important affordable
housing goals to ensure that
hard-working families would
be able to access mortgage
loans. But with the housing
market’s lengthy path to re-
covery, many have renewed
calls for legislative reform of
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And just as the GSEs are now
pledged to serve the entire
market, some want to take
away the system’s access and
affordability requirements.
That kind of change would
harm Black families and com-
munities, as well as other low-
wealth families.
“The big ticket items that we
are looking for is the national
duty-to-serve and affordable
housing goals that have a reg-
ulator able to enforce those,”
said Scott Astrada, CRL’s Di-
rector of Federal Advocacy.
Days later, on February 5,
Mick Mulvaney, the White
House hand-picked Acting
Director for the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau
(CFPB) announced he would
move the Bureau’s staff for
its Office of Fair Lending and
Equal Opportunity (OFLEO)
directly under his control.
The Dodd-Frank Act man-
dates that OFLEO perform
“oversight and enforcement
of federal laws to ensure the
fair, equitable, and nondis-
criminatory access to credit.”
By moving fair lending ex-
perts to the CFPB’s Director’s
office, to focus instead on
consumer education and co-
ordination, there are real con-
cerns that the OFLEO will be
unable to perform its enforce-
ment and oversight mission.
“This action could open
up the floodgates on lending
discrimination, which would
damage the ability for people
of color to build wealth,” not-
ed Debbie Goldstein, CRL’s Ex-
ecutive Vice President. “One
of the reasons the CFPB was
established was because lend-
ing discrimination targeted
people of color with predato-
ry, high-cost loans that led to
foreclosures.”
Mulvaney’s personnel shift
is yet another consistent sign
that the nation’s financial cop-
on-the-beat is walking a new
patrol.
Since assuming “unlaw-
ful” leadership at CFPB,
Mulvaney has also dropped
a lawsuit against predatory
payday lenders, supported
repeal of the Bureau’s auto
lending guidance that took
direct aim at pervasive and
discriminatory practices. He
has also made clear his plans
to reopen rulemaking under
the Home Mortgage Disclo-
sure Act (HMDA).
HMDA is a federal law that
requires most financial insti-
tutions to provide mortgage
data to the public. It ensures
that mortgage lenders are
serving the credit needs of
communities in which they
are located.
Read the rest of this commentary at
TheSkanner.com
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have found myself increas-
ingly wondering whether
social media, particularly
Twitter and Facebook, con-
stitutes a vehicle for civil dia-
logue. The number of attacks
that I have either witnessed
or experienced has been as-
tounding. It has gotten to the
point that I rarely respond to
comments on either Twitter
or Facebook, unless I have
concluded that the original
writer/author was interested
in a response.
The situation has gotten
way out of control. The in-
sults that are thrown around;
the demeaning language; the
condescension; I could go on
and on.
About a year ago, I awak-
ened to a Twitter storm at-
tacking me for my support of
the Palestinian people. It was
not just one tweet; it was one
tweet after another, accusing
me of being everything but a
child of God. There seemed to
be no way to stop it.
Just recently, a good friend
of mine came under a vicious
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
The Global
African
Twitter attack by someone
whose sanity I have been
forced to question. My friend
could not figure out a way to
stop it, so it continued until
the attacker ran out of steam.
Social media makes it easy
to be obnoxious. Among oth-
er things, there are few, if
any, penalties. In the old days,
if you read something with
which you were in disagree-
ment in the paper; magazine;
or even saw something on
television, you would write a
letter to the editor. To write
such a letter you had to do
some thinking prior to com-
posing it. You then had to mail
the letter. This entire process
gave you at least a moment
to contemplate your reaction
and whether it was worth re-
sponding to something and, if
so, how to respond.
In today’s social media
world, filters seemed to be re-
served for photos and videos.
When it comes to dialogue,
people read something on-
line and react. You can react
immediately by sending an
email, tweeting, posting on
Facebook, or Instagram, etc.
You don’t have to really stop
“
Social media
makes it easy to
be obnoxious,
because there
are few, if any,
penalties
and think. You just hit “Send.”
And if you are really angry
and want to be nasty, there
are no penalties. You can, in
effect, curse someone out,
because what are they going
to do? You can literally say
whatever you want to anyone
and the worst that they can
do is “block” you from future
exchanges. But that need not
stop you, because you can
post around them or even cre-
ate another account and con-
tinue the verbal onslaught.
The result is that, rather
than a medium for rational
exchanges and debates, social
media is more about “troll-
ing” or making assertions. In
a Facebook, exchange I had
with someone a few months
ago, after I refuted their argu-
ment they simply dismissed
me by saying: Well, that’s
what I believe and I have a
right to believe what I believe.
Really? So, when it comes to
social media, should we really
just say to hell with the facts?
Each day, when I turn to so-
cial media I feel that I must
dress in psychological battle
armor, preparing for yet one
more poison dart to come fly-
ing.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a talk show
host, writer and activist. Follow
him on Twitter @BillFletcher-
Jr, Facebook and at www.billf-
letcherjr.com.
nt •
lo c a l n e w s •
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