Urban News Features

Homelessness is a National Crisis, Research Finds by Charlene Crowell

Sept. 30, 2019

Homelessness is a National Crisis, Research Finds
HUD claims affordable housing not the answer
By Charlene Crowell

Homeless woman on the sidewalk only blocks from the U. S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

The visibility of America's homeless proves that the crisis deserves attention from every level of American government.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - For more than a decade, economists, lawmakers, and others have heralded the nation’s economy. Often citing how unemployment has declined as new jobs have been created, or Wall Street trading and major bank profits rising, some might be led to believe that all is well in America.

But as Sportin’ Life in the folk opera Porgy and Bess sang, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

On September 16, California Governor Gavin Newsom joined by state officials representing cities and counties wrote a letter that urged President Donald Trump to recognize homelessness as a “national crisis decades in the making that demands action at every level of government”.

“Mr. President – shelter solves sleep,” wrote the California officials, “but only housing solves homelessness.”

Governor Newsom and company were absolutely correct. State and local officials across the country also reckon with limited resources to house the nation’s half million homeless and its accompanying persistent poverty. Whether eastward from Washington, DC to Baltimore, New York, and Boston, or westward from Los Angeles, to San Francisco, and Seattle, or even other locales - America’s homeless are a visible presence that not everyone has been a part of an economic recovery.

In 2018, 67 percent of America’s homeless people were individuals. The remaining 33 percent were families with dependent children, according to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Further, according to a new 2019 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Our nation is currently in the midst of a long period of economic expansion. Yet stagnant wages, rising housing costs and inaccessible job opportunities keep many children and families trapped in impoverished communities. And despite economic growth, we have not seen significant reduction in poverty.”

The Casey Foundation report also found that between 2013-2017, Black and Native American children were the most likely to live in concentrated poverty. For example, half of Michigan’s Black children live in high poverty. Other states where child poverty runs the risk of homelessness are Mississippi (43%), Ohio, (43%), Pennsylvania (42%) and Wisconsin (44%).

Yet despite the availability of homeless and poverty research, HUD Secretary Ben Carson sent Governor Newsom a stark rejection of California’s appeal for federal financial assistance to alleviate California’s homeless.

Secretary Carson’s September 18 reply said in part, “California cannot spend its way out of this problem using Federal funds…More vouchers are clearly not the solution the State needs. To address this crisis, California must reduce its regulatory burdens on housing.”

Advocates for homeless and low-income people strongly disagreed with Secretary Carson’s assessment.

“We know that the number one cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing,” said Megan Hustings, managing director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

“Consumers are already struggling with crushing debt from student loans and medical expenses, or facing triple-digit interest rates when they attempt to access small dollar loans,” noted Marisabel Torres, Director of California Policy with the Center for Responsible Lending, “When they also have to pay some of the highest housing costs in the nation, it is unfortunately unsurprising that there are such large numbers of homeless people in many of California’s large cities.”

“California’s homeless may be the largest by state,” continued Torres, “but the problem is a national one that deserves to be recognized and acted upon.”

In 1987 there was an expression of national will to respond to America’s homeless through enactment of the McKinney Homeless Act. That statute created the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness dedicating the ongoing support of 19 federal agencies to prevent and end homelessness. HUD is one of the participating agencies. The Council on Homelessness even has a written plan, Home, Together, that lays out federal remedies over the fiscal years of 2018-2022.

According to the 2018 report by the Council on Homelessness, “Crisis services are the critical front line of communities’ responses to homelessness, helping people meet basic survival needs while also helping them swiftly secure permanent housing opportunities.”

Someone should give Secretary Carson a copy. And if that takes a while, here’s what Congresswoman Maxine Waters advised the leadership of the House Appropriations Committee this past June:

“In the richest country in the world, it is simply unconscionable that this many of our neighbors across the country are living without a place to call home,” said Waters. “Several communities have experienced severe increases in their homeless populations, further illuminating that homelessness is a crisis. The federal government must recognize the national crisis at hand and support communities and local service providers who are on the streets helping.”

Charlene Crowell is the Communications Deputy Director with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Debt Collectors Target Blacks, Consumers of Color, and People Making Less Than $50K by Charlene Crowell

Sept. 19, 2019

Debt Collectors Target Blacks, Consumers of Color, and People Making Less Than $50K

Consumer survey finds bipartisan support for debt collection regulation

By Charlene Crowell

debtcollectorgraph

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A new survey asked likely voters across the country what they thought of a proposed debt collection rule. The response was strong and broad opposition.

Proposed earlier this year by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathleen Kraninger, the rule would authorize debt collectors to expand how often consumers could be contacted as well as the ways such contacts could be made: email, text messages, and more.

Conducted by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting, the poll was jointly commissioned by the Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). The results, released on September 11, found stark opposition by consumers to regulatory reforms announced by the CFPB. Consumers are strongly united in wanting more and better protection in this area of financial regulation.

One in five poll participants were contacted by a debt collector in the past 12 months for different types of debt – including medical. Consumers of color, lower-income consumers and military families were contacted at higher rates. More than one in three Black consumers (34%) or consumers with incomes less than $50,000 (33%), were contacted. Among Latinx consumers, nearly half or 48% were contacted.

Likely voters were most concerned about three specific changes included in the CFPB debt collection proposal:

76% opposed allowing debt collectors to leave messages for people in places that are not private;

74% opposed allowing debt collectors to contact consumers by private direct messaging on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter; and

73% opposed allowing debt collectors to phone people as often as seven times a week for each debt in collection.

“It should not surprise any of us that Americans don’t support government-sanctioned harassment by debt collectors via phone, email, or text,” said AFR Senior Policy Counsel Linda Jun. “And yet that’s exactly what the Kraninger CFPB is proposing. The agency needs to withdraw this plan and come up with one that actually protects consumers.”

The real irony with CFPB is that for six years, consumers benefitted from a series of actions that helped 29 million consumers to receive nearly $12 billion in restitution and/or forgiveness. Additionally, multiple public forums held across the country on a variety of issues gave consumers and all stakeholder interests meaningful opportunities to help shape public policy developments. Research released by the CFPB have documented the harm of abusive debt collection practices and shown the rippling consequences of financial services practices as large as mortgages and as small as payday loans.

Under the Trump Administration, a consistent and focused deregulation effort has been underway to turn CFPB into a toothless tiger. It’s almost as if CFPB now stands for Corporate Financial Protection Bureau. Rather than living up to its name, CFPB eschews consumers and defers to companies and their preferences as to what financial regulation should look like.

The Administration has also repeatedly emphasized consumer information and education while predatory lenders pick the pockets of unsuspecting consumers. The error in this approach is that being aware of what should occur will not and cannot change punitive practices that earn billions of dollars for the corporations abusing consumers.

These actions are particularly suspect when one considers that debt collection complaints have been among the chief consumer complaints filed at both the CFPB and the Federal Trade Commission. Under CFPB’s first director, the agency filed more than 25 federal enforcement actions against debt collectors and creditors that deliver $300 million in restitution and another $100 million in civil penalties due to deceptive and abusive debt collection practices.

From weakening the Bureau’s Office of Fair Lending, to rewriting the long-awaited payday lending rule that required lenders to ensure that borrowers can afford to repay these small-dollar loans that come with big costs, businesses and corporations are being coddled while consumers remain caught in harassing debt collection practices and debt trap loans.

“Bad policies from Washington are often the brainchild of people who aren’t personally impacted by them,” said Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Allied Progress, a consumer advocacy organization. “Maybe spanning the spammer-in-chief at the CFPB will help them realize the massive invasion of privacy that are inviting with this plan…Congress should get prepared to hold them accountable.”

Speaking for the Center for Responsible Lending, Melissa Stegman, a Senior Policy Counsel said:

“The poll is clear – Americans don’t want CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger to give debt collectors a license to harass and intimidate consumers,” said Stegman. “A consumer-first debt collection rule should protect people – and particularly people of color and active duty military members, veterans and their families – from time-barred ‘zombie debt’.”

Government is supposed to be ‘for the people’-- not for corporations.

DeVos Hands For-Profit Colleges $11.1 Billion Over 10 Years By Charlene Crowell

Sept. 9, 2019

DeVos Hands For-Profit Colleges $11.1 Billion Over 10 Years

By Charlene Crowell

black female student studying 1

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Most consumers would likely agree that consumers should get what they pay for. If a product or service fails to deliver its promises, refunds are in order.

That kind of thinking guided the Obama Administration’s decision to address false promises made to student loan borrowers.

A rule known as the “borrower defense to repayment”, came on the heels of successive for-profit college closures that left thousands of students stranded educationally and financially. The federal rule provided a way for snookered students and borrowers to apply for and secure loan forgiveness. Its premise was that both borrowers and taxpayers were assured that the Department of Education was looking out for them.

But with a new administration and Education Secretary, rules that made sense and brought taxpayers financial fairness have been repealed and replaced with other rules that favor for-profit colleges, loan servicers, and other business interests.

Just as many people were about to begin their Labor Day holiday, the federal Department of Education announced it was changing a key rule that provided a pathway to federal loan forgiveness. Instead, a new rule puts in place a process that will be cumbersome, lengthy, and nearly impossible for consumers to successfully secure relief.

Commenting on the rule that will now apply to all federal student loans made on or after July 1, 2020, Secretary Betsy DeVos said, “We believe this final rule corrects the wrongs of the 2016 rule through common sense and carefully crafted reforms that hold colleges and universities accountable and treat students and taxpayers fairly.”

Excuse me Secretary DeVos, the rule was promulgated due to the thousands of wrongs resulting from less than truthful recruitment practices, false advertising, and targeting of vulnerable populations: low-income, first-generation college students who were often people of color, and veterans seeking new skills in a return to civilian life. For-profit colleges largely remain financially solvent by their heavy dependence upon taxpayer-funded student loans.

For Black America, the effects of predatory student lending at for-profit colleges comes with severe consequences. According to research by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL):

Only 21 percent of all for-profit students in four-year programs graduate within six years;
Four years after graduation, Black students with a bachelor’s degree owe almost double the debt their white classmates owe; and
While for-profit College Enrollment Represents 8.6 Percent of all College Students, These Schools Generate Over 34 percent of all Students Who Default on Their Loans.

While this new rule may make sense to Secretary DeVos, education advocates had an opposite reaction, quickly and emphatically detailing how the rule change is as negative as it is costly.

“After the collapse of Corinthian College and ITT Tech, two of the largest for-profit education companies in the country, the Obama Administration created the Borrower Defense rule to protect students and taxpayers from deceptive practices that could jeopardize the future of thousands of students and our economy,” said Ashley Harrington, a CRL Senior Policy Counsel, and a primary negotiator during the Education Department’s negotiated rule-making process.

With DeVos’ new rule, both the automatic discharge of federal loans that took effect after a school closed and another provision that allowed group claim relief are now eliminated. Anyone seeking redress on student loans must also bear the full burden of documenting their alleged “harm” before a claim can be reviewed.

The new rule also removes states from opportunities to defend their own constituents. State laws, many enacted before the 2016 Obama-era rule took effect, provided another route to legal redress. But with the new DeVos rule, no state-level claims can be pursued.

“That’s problematic for us,” added Harrington. “The federal standard should be the floor, not the ceiling, for relief.”

Over the next decade, the Education Department projects an $11 billion cost-savings from denying loan forgiveness. But for student loan borrowers, denying $11 billion in loan forgiveness adds an unwieldy and costly burden for an education, and earnings that were never realized.

“The new ‘borrower defense rule’ does anything but defend students,” said James Kvaal, president of The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS). “In fact it makes it almost impossible for students who are lied to, defrauded, or otherwise abused by their colleges to get a fresh start. …By leaving students on the hook for colleges’ illegal actions, today’s rule sends a clear message that there will be little or no consequences for returning to the misrepresentations and deceptions that characterized the for-profit college boom.”

A similar reaction came from Abby Shafroth, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, and like Harrington, participated in the Department’s rulemaking meetings.

“There are over 170,000 pending applications with many borrowers held in limbo for years,” continued Shafroth. “The new rules reflect an ongoing shift to protect the multi-billion-dollar for-profit education industry at the expense of students and taxpayers and come amid concerns about conflicts of interest raised about the rule of former for-profit executives hired by the Department.”

Rather than saving taxpayer dollars, it seems that this new rule is guaranteeing a taxpayer-funded revenue stream for the benefit of for-profit colleges -- not students.

Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Communications Deputy Director. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Black Homeownership Plummets to ‘Crisis’ Level, New NAREB President Promises Strategies for Increase by Hazel Trice Edney

Sept. 10, 2019

Black Homeownership Plummets to ‘Crisis’ Level, New NAREB President Promises Strategies for Increase
By Hazel Trice Edney

Donnell Williams, NAREB President

Donnell Williams being sworn in as new president of NAREB at the organization's annual convention July 28-Aug.2, 2019.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The new “commander and chief” of Black Homeownership in America has released a new strategy for raising the numbers that have plummeted to percentages below the time of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But accomplishing that fete could prove more than daunting as the 2019 State of Housing in Black America (SHIBA) report – released this week – reveals the situation to be at crisis level, according to leaders in Black homeownership.

“Someone needs to proclaim and declare a cease and desist on the declining rates of Black homeownership. Someone needs to bring some programs and highlight this epidemic, this crisis in our community…I pray that I am up to the task,” says Donnell Williams in a recent interview following his swearing in as the 31^st president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), the 72-year-old organization founded to secure “equal housing opportunities, regardless of race, creed, or color.”

A member of NAREB for 16 years, Williams, owner of Destiny Realty and the largest independent Black real estate broker in the state of New Jersey, describes himself as “boots on the ground”, a posture from which he is able to see up close and personal the hindrances and the obstacles to Black homeownership– and how to fix them.

The SHIBA report, researched primarily by the Urban Institute and released annually by NAREB, in order to “shed light on the public policies, private sector practices and other systemic disparities preventing Black Americans from purchasing a home of their choice,” reports this week that “all gains in Black homeownership that had been achieved between 1968 and 2004, had been erased by 2018.”

The following are just some of the chief findings:

The homeownership rate for Black households stood at 40.6 percent in the second quarter of 2019 - a full percentage point lower than 2018’s second-quarter rate of 41.6 percentage points. The current homeownership rate for Blacks is currently below the 1968 level of 40.9 percent at the time of the passage of the Fair Housing Act.
Homeownership for non-Hispanic Whites stands at 73.1 percent, down from its high of 76 percent in 2004.
Blacks have experienced the most substantial loss of homeownership since 2004, declining more than 8.5 percentage points, or 17 percent, as compared to the less than 4 percent decline for non-Hispanic Whites. In other words, Blacks have lost more than four times the share of homeownership as non-Hispanic Whites since 2004.
Half of all Blacks born between 1956 and 1965 were homeowners by the age of 50. Blacks born between 1966 and 1975 have a homeownership rate of just above 40 percent and are thus unlikely to achieve a 50 percent homeownership rate by their 50^th birthdays. Black millennials, if current trends continue, may fail to achieve a homeownership rate of 40 percent by the age of 50.
The gap in homeownership rates between Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites is larger now than it was in 1934, the year of the enactment of FHA (Federal Housing Administration) and the start of modern housing finance system.

SHIBA places the plummeting levels of Black homeownership squarely at the feet of loan denials, largely because of debt to income ratio and credit scoring.

“For Black applicants, overall denial rates for home purchase loans were double those of non-Hispanic White applicants—18 percent versus 9 percent, unchanged from 2016,” the report states. It adds, “The Black denial rate for conventional loans is down significantly [from] its high of 36 percent (versus 19 percent) at the height of the foreclosure crisis in 2008.

The report continues, “Debt-to-income ratio was the most common reason for denial reported for Black applicants—at 31 percent compared to 20 percent for non-Hispanic White applicants. Credit history was the second most prevalent reason for denials among both Black applicants (25 percent) and non-Hispanic White applicants (20 percent).”

Williams says he believes he has a winning strategy that will take up arms against the key hindrances. He was set to release that strategy this week in a press conference and conversation with national leaders. Among the key programs and initiatives, according to a NAREB release this week:

House Then The Car - A campaign targeted to the 1.7 million American millennials and generation x populations who make over $100k per year and who are home buyer ready but are currently renting.
Realtist Opportunities For Seasoned Individuals (ROSI) - An initiative that addresses the wholistic needs (buying/selling real estate, life insurance, retirement, health insurance, etc.) of people over 40 years of age, or parents of any age.
Civic Engagement - Program that identifies and cultivates a host of "Allies" that expand beyond established networks of partners and faith-based communities. These "Allies" would include Black Chambers of Commerce, Greek organizations, minority professional organizations and more.

“This is a moment in our history to demand a cease and desist in the denial of equal access to mortgage credit and homeownership for the nation’s Black Americans,” Williams concludes in a letter as part of his “Message from the President” in the SHIBA report. “After you have read our report and are armed with both an understanding of the barriers faced, and solutions required, I encourage you to support NAREB’s efforts. Whether you are a policymaker, regulator, mortgage lender, real estate professional, housing or civil rights advocate, faith-based leader, trade association executive, non-profit organization representative, housing counselor, Black head of household or student, there is a place for you on our team. NAREB’s work is guided by three words: Educate, Empower and Mobilize. With these three words as our guide, NAREB is confident it will succeed in increasing Black homeownership and wealth in America.”

NFL’s Depression-era Ban on Black Players Lingers On in the Owner’s Box By Jesse Jackson Sr.

Sept. 9, 2019

NFL’s Depression-era Ban on Black Players Lingers On in the Owner’s Box
By Jesse Jackson Sr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The National Football League season opened last week with a full slate of games. On the field, extraordinary athletes of all races and backgrounds competed with the same set of rules. Yet, it is worth noting that this has not always been the case — and that the legacy of discrimination has yet to be redressed.

In June, when the Chicago Bears announced that their “throwback jersey” for their 100th anniversary this year would come from 1936, they were honoring a jersey that was worn in the third season of the NFL’s 12-year ban on black players. In an extraordinary article for Windy City Gridiron, Chicago Sports historian Jack Silverstein detailed the story and background of the ban. Unlike baseball, the NFL allowed black players to play in its early years.

Black players like All Pro halfback Fritz Pollard and tackle Duke Slater were among the most honored players of the day. “What makes the NFL so unique is that it’s a full-fledged league and it starts off integrated,” says professor, author and historian Louis Moore, whose work includes the podcast The Black Athlete.

Yet, when the Great Depression deepened, black players were suddenly banned from the league. The owners — led by George Preston Marshall, owner of the Washington Redskins and, Silverstein postulates, likely George Halas, famed owner of the Chicago Bears — clearly enforced a ban on black players that lasted from 1933 to 1945. The argument apparently was that with the Depression, black players would be resented — the football version of last hired, first fired. The Washington owner, Marshall, writes Silverstein, was an “avowed, gleeful racist,” who generally bears the onus of pushing the ban. He hoped to market the Washington team as the team of the South.

But other owners, including legends in the sport, were complicit or worse, including Chicago’s Halas, Curly Lambeau of the Packers, Tim Mara of the Giants and Art Rooney of the Steelers. Mara’s Giants didn’t have a black player until 1948, Halas’ Bears not until 1952, Lambeau’s Packers not until 1950. Marshall’s Redskins were the last to integrate, doing so only in 1962 when the federal government threatened to revoke the lease on the team’s stadium.

Today, NFL rosters are integrated. But there’s still a dearth of blacks in the elite club of owners. Of the 32 teams in the NFL, only two principal owners are people of color — Shahid Khan of the Jaguars and Kim Pegula of the Buffalo Bills. (Of the 92 teams in baseball, basketball and football combined, there are only six majority owners that are people of color.) Ownership is a small club, and the club owners still tend to admit only people that look like them.

The exclusion is also a legacy of the discrimination. When black players — and black owners — were banned, teams were affordable. As the league built up, many teams were inherited, gaining in value along the way. By being excluded at the start, black owners have a far harder time getting in now.

Today’s integrated teams on the field serve as positive examples. Fans cheer for favorites by the color of their jerseys, not the color of their skin. That players of all races and backgrounds play by the same set of rules exemplifies the equal justice under the law that we strive for. But equality on the field should parallel equality in management and ownership.

The NFL should start by acknowledging the racial ban it enforced, recognizing black players and moving more of them into the Hall of Fame and taking concrete steps to ensure that the ownership, management and coaching of NFL teams reflect the diversity of the players on the field and the fans in the stands.