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.
Affordable Housing Resources focuses on helping Middle Tennessee’s low and moderate income families achieve homeownership. To do so, the nonprofit: develops affordable housing; provides individual counseling and group classes focused on homebuying, foreclosure prevention and financial planning; and offers low-interest mortgage loans and down payment and closing cost assistance. Since its incorporation in 1989, it has developed 1,300 new homes and helped more than 14,000 families and individuals buy homes.
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.
