Justice Department and North Carolina Reach $13.5 Million Agreement with First National Bank of Pennsylvania to Regarding Redlining

The First National Bank of Pennsylvania (FNB) has agreed to pay $13.5 million to resolve allegations by the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the State of North Carolina that it engaged in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination by redlining predominantly Black and Hispanic North Carolina neighborhoods. Redlining is an illegal practice in which lenders avoid providing credit services to individuals living in communities of color because of the race, color, or national origin of residents in those communities.

The complaint alleges that from 2017-2021, FNB failed to provide mortgage lending services to predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Charlotte and Winston-Salem, and discouraged people seeking credit there from obtaining home loans. Instead, FNB’s home mortgage lending focused disproportionately on white areas of the cities. Other lenders had applications in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods at 2.5 times the rate of FNB in Charlotte and 4 times the rate in Winston-Salem. FNB’s branches in both cities were also mostly located in predominantly white neighborhoods. The bank closed its only branch in a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood in Winston-Salem in 2021.

The complaint further alleges that FNB had mortgage loan officers working out of predominantly white areas to generate loan applications and that the bank did not track how they developed loan referrals or how they distributed the bank’s mortgage marketing materials.

Under the two proposed consent orders, FNB will invest $13.5 million to increase credit opportunities for communities of color in Charlotte and Winston-Salem, including: (1) $11.75 million in a loan subsidy fund to increase access to home mortgage, home improvement, and home refinance loans for residents of majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in FNB’s service areas; (2) $1 million on community partnerships to provide services related to credit, consumer financial education, homeownership, and foreclosure prevention for residents of predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in those areas; (3) $750,000 for advertising, outreach, consumer financial education, and credit counseling for predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the areas; (4) open three new branches in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the two cities, with at least one mortgage banker assigned to each branch; (5) hire a director of community lending to oversee the development of lending in communities of color; (6) retain independent consultants to enhance its fair lending program and better meet the communities’ needs for mortgage credit; (7) conduct a community credit needs assessment; (8) evaluate its fair lending compliance management systems; and (9) conduct staff trainings.

With assets of over $45 billion, FNB is headquartered in Pennsylvania and operates approximately 350 branches throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is among the 100 largest US banks.

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Photo by Andrew Stapleton on Unsplash

Read the February 5, 2024 DOJ release.

Despite Milwaukee Anti-Discrimination Law, Landlords Continue to Explicitly Reject Section 8 Applicants

 

Milwaukee County in 2018 banned landlords from categorically rejecting recipients of housing assistance. More than five years later the county’s Office of Corporation Counsel, which is supposed to enforce the protections, says it has yet to receive a verified complaint of such discrimination. That’s not for a lack of discrimination, a Wisconsin Watch investigation found. Some landlords continue to explicitly reject Section 8 applicants — even saying so in public listings. Four Section 8 renters told Wisconsin Watch no one informed them about the protections or how to file a complaint.

Moreover, Milwaukee County officials now question whether they can enforce the provision. Income-based discrimination is the law in Wisconsin and 21 other states to various degrees. However, income-based protections in Wisconsin’s Open Housing Act allow landlords to refuse vouchers, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1995. Milwaukee County Chief Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun told Wisconsin Watch her office questions whether the county has legal authority to enforce the ordinance.

Milwaukee County and the city of Milwaukee operate separate housing agencies that distribute Section 8 vouchers, with the majority coming through the city. Only the county’s authority mentions the 2018 protections in information packets meant to help renters navigate the program. Neither packet says how to report income-based discrimination to the county.

Section 8, the federal government’s largest low-income housing subsidy program, serves 2.3 million households nationwide, including more than 16,500 people in Milwaukee County in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

It aims to broaden housing access for participants, but renters and housing advocates say landlords outside of historically disinvested neighborhoods rarely rent to people with vouchers — one of many factors limiting opportunities in Milwaukee and nationwide, particularly people of color.

Throughout the Milwaukee metro area, 85% of families of color holding vouchers lived in minority-concentrated neighborhoods — areas where just 38% of rental units were considered voucher-affordable, the analysis found.

Read the January 31, 2024 Wisconsin Watch article.

Harvard Study Finds Rental Affordability Lowest Ever

The just-released Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report America's Rental Housing 2024 has found that in 2022 an all-time high of 22.4 million renters spent over 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Among cost-burdened households, 12.1 million had housing costs that were more than half of their income, an all-time high for such severe burdens. The dwindling supply of low-rent units is only worsening cost burdens, according to the report. As the study explains: "Climbing rents in recent years propelled US cost burdens to staggering new heights: in 2022, half of all US renters were cost burdened. And while rental markets are finally cooling, evictions have risen, the country is seeing the highest homelessness counts on record, and the need for rental assistance is greater than ever."

The negative personal impacts of such tight budgets force financially vulnerable renters to make awful choices. Harvard Joint Center analysis of the 2022 Consumer Expenditure Survey found that severely cost-burdened renter households in the lowest expenditure quartile spent 39% less on food and 42% less on healthcare than unburdened households. Others may end up living in overcrowded or  structurally inadequate conditions, threatening their health and well-being.

Local Data

For the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson area, 86% of renters are considered moderately burdened by the report, and 103% severely burdened. This geographic combination is the sole local breakdown available in the study.

Concerning the renters' race, about 175,000 renters in the area are Black, 134,000 White, 25,000 Hispanic/Latino, 18,000 Asian, and 18,000 multi-racial or another race. Some 52.1% of Blacks are renters, 21.1% of Whites, 45.8% of Hispanics/Latinos, 31.2% of Asians, and 50.1% multi-racial or another race.

Read the Harvard Joint Center study

Go to the Harvard report's summary page.

HUD Settles Tennessee Apartment Violations of Americans with Disabilities Act and the Violence Against Women Act

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has entered into a Voluntary Compliance Agreement with HUD-funded Tennessee housing providers Alco Greenbriar Partners LP, Alco Properties, Inc., and Alco Management, Inc., requiring the respondents to pay $50,000 in compensation to the aggrieved parties. The VCA resolves findings of noncompliance related to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as findings of noncompliance related to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Read the Agreement, Letter of Findings and the VAWA Memo.

The case began with a limited compliance review initiated by HUD in 2022 regarding Greenbriar Apartments, a 208-unit development in Tennessee. HUD found that the respondents effectively denied multiple reasonable accommodation/modification requests, as well as instances of VAWA noncompliance regarding two households that experienced incidents of sexual assault and/or domestic violence and were not provided the requested VAWA transfers or take any additional action to process the requests.

HUD also found that the respondents were unwilling to transfer residents from one Alco property to another when a vacancy that met the need of the requesting tenant was unavailable at Greenbriar, that 5% of the units were not accessible to individuals with mobility impairments, and 2% more of the units were not accessible to individuals with hearing or vision impairments.

Under the 2023 Agreement resolving the Section 504 findings and VAWA issues, the respondents agreed to: pay $50,000 in monetary compensation for the five aggrieved parties; amend its reasonable accommodation transfer log; revise the transfer policy; revise its VAWA policies; construct or convert 10 UFAS-accessible units, with an additional 4 units for the hearing and visually impaired and accessible common areas; designate a VAWA Coordinator; respond to VAWA-related grievances and transfer requests within 10 days; and attend VAWA training.

Anyone who feels they have experienced discrimination in housing may file a complaint by contacting HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at (800) 669-9777 (voice) or (800) 877-8339 (Federal Relay Service). Housing providers' responsibilities to provide reasonable accommodations and reasonable modifications to individuals with disabilities are available here.

Read the January 25, 2023 HUD release.

HUD Charges Montana Property Manager and Apartment Complex Owner with Retaliation

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it is charging an individual property manager and ownership entity in Livingston, Montana, for retaliation against a tenant for their exercise of fair housing rights, retaliatory behavior including coercion, intimidation, threats, or interference in violation of Section 818 of the Fair Housing Act. Read HUD’s Charge. The Fair Housing Act prohibits retaliation for exercising fair housing rights, as well as coercing, intimidating, threatening, or interfering with someone’s exercise of those rights. HUD’s Charge alleges that the property manager and owner of a Livingston, Montana, ten-unit apartment complex retaliated against a tenant after the tenant informed the property manager that his unwanted conduct toward her daughter was inappropriate given the property manager’s position as landlord. After the tenant confronted the property manager, the property manager took several retaliatory actions, including sending multiple threats of eviction, revoking tenancy privileges, and sending harassing text messages, ending in seeking to evict the complainant. The tenant felt forced to leave the unit and seek out alternative, less desirable housing because of the retaliation. A U. S. Administrative Law Judge will hear HUD’s charge unless any party elects to have the case heard in Federal district court. If the Administrative Law Judge finds, after a hearing, that discrimination has occurred, the judge may award damages to the resident for his losses as a result of the discrimination; injunctive relief and other equitable relief to deter further discrimination and payment of attorney fees; and civil penalties to vindicate the public interest. If the Federal court hears the case, the Judge may also award punitive damages to the resident. People who believe they are the victims of housing discrimination should contact HUD at (800) 669-9777 (voice) or (800) 927-9275 (TTY). More information is available at www.hud.gov/fairhousing and www.justice.gov.

You can follow Secretary Fudge on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. ***** Read the January 23, 2024 HUD release.

There will be four focused sessions on changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) at NCRC's April 3-4 2024 Just Economy Conference.

 

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) will be hosting four focused sessions on changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) at its 2024 Just Economy Conference. The CRA requires banks to lend in the communities where they do business. The federal regulators overseeing CRA announced late in 2023 a much-needed overhaul of this important economic justice law. These sessions will treat the changes as well as the implications for community development and equity.

Register Now

The sessions are:   The New CRA 101 (ROUND 1) This session covers the updated CRA, which encourages financial institutions to meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods and requires federal banking agencies to assess the record of meeting these standards and evaluate their efforts. We will explore how CRA can be used to increase affordable housing and small business reinvestment in your communities, including crucial updates to the rule announced in late 2023.    The New CRA 101 (ROUND 2) Addressing the Climate Crisis through CRA and federal funding Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of storms, heat waves, fires and other weather-related disasters, with communities of color and low-income households the most affected. CRA’s definition of community development was recently updated to encourage banks to finance weather resiliency. This session will cover climate/weather resiliency projects and priorities, including how best to work with communities to prevent bluelining, a trend where financial institutions withdraw services or increase costs due to climate change.    What's Next With The CRA Final Rule This session will focus on what's coming next with CRA reform and upcoming opportunities to further shape the development of the new CRA rule. Speakers will be covering topics including: developing a statistical model that identifies markets where all banks are underperforming, best practices for reviewing the impact of community development on neighborhoods, and how the regulators can be proactive in preventing a decline in critical investments.   State CRA And Non-Banks Community advocates, along with state and local elected officials, are increasingly pushing for state CRA laws that bring in more resources and fix gaps in the federal CRA rules, especially since more and more lending is done by institutions not covered by federal CRA. This session will explore how state CRA laws include a review of credit unions and mortgage companies' loans and investments in underserved people and neighborhoods, in addition to banks.    Register now.

Free Census Webinar on Income, Poverty, & Educational Data by Race is January 25th

Entitled The Exploration of Income, Poverty and Educational Census Data, the free 60-minute webinar presented by the Census Bureau will be on January 25, 2024 beginning at 2:00 p.m. EST. In this webinar, the Census staff will provide and explore current data to understand select income, poverty, education statistics, & tables organized by race (black and white), age, and sex.

This webinar is 60-minutes, and begins at 2:00 PM EST. Registration in advance is required. Request ASL at (ask.data@census.gov) and allow a minimum of 72 hours notice. For a refresher on Census tools or topics, please refer to the Census' previous webinar series It’s All in the Tools or Back to Data Basics.

The webinar is part of the U.S. Census Academy's 2024 webinar series, “Exploring the Diversity of Census Bureau Data.” It is a great way to learn about how to access and use current data trends in race, income, etc., as well as how to use helpful data analysis tools. "This webinar series uses real-life scenarios to help the attendee to learn how to locate and use data tools to access Census Bureau data.  “Exploring the Diversity of Census Bureau Data” is broken down into four mini-series topics which provide an expanded look at our (the Census Bureau) data on these topics:

• Race.
• Geography.
• Business and economy.
• Population and housing.

Each is 60 minutes with prior registration required.

Here are some upcoming Census webinars on diversity issues that sound interesting:

On February 8, 2024. the Census will present its An Overview of Hispanics in America webinar. This webinar provides an overview of the Hispanic population in the U.S.

The February 22, 2024, webinar will be Exploring the Diversity and Growth of the Asian American Population. "Build your knowledge to paint a local portrait of Asian Americans using Census Bureau data."

There are a number of free Census webinars after February that concern Using CBP Non-Employer Statistics (NES) to Evaluate Change, the TIGERweb, Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs), among several others.

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Source: Go to the Census Bureau's series website.