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Huffington Post: Occupy Wall Street: A New Wave of Fair Housing Activism?
By: Gregory D. Squires and Chester Hartman
Forty years ago Gale Cincotta, affectionately known in the community organizing world as the mother of community reinvestment, led her troops into bank lobbies, effectively shutting them down for the day, held barbeques on the front yards of bank executives, and threatened Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker that she would hang a "Loan Shark" sign over the Federal Reserve Board office in Washington, D.C. Since that time a fair housing/fair lending/community reinvestment infrastructure has emerged, changing the way the nation's financial institutions and housing providers do business. With the passage of fair housing and fair lending laws, lawsuits and administrative complaints to enforce them, community reinvestment agreements and other tactics, a tradition of redlining and disinvestment slowly evolved into a commitment to fair housing and reinvestment. But has this movement run its course? And do the Occupy Wall Street protests, which are reminiscent of what Cincotta was doing 40 years ago, portend the next wave?
Going back at least to the creation of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934, virtually all branches of the housing industry, along with the government agencies that regulated it, practiced explicit, overt racial discrimination. Early FHA underwriting manuals stated that "if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes." Until 1950, the National Association of Realtors stated in its code of ethics, "a realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood...members of any race, nationality or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood." Racially restrictive covenants assured that properties in the more desirable neighborhoods would stay in white hands.
The Civil Rights Movement eliminated virtually all the explicitly discriminatory rules of real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and other housing providers, though discriminatory practices persisted. A host of community organizations, consumer advocacy groups, fair housing agencies, sympathetic attorneys, supportive foundations, some elected officials, and others developed a range of skills (e.g., research, litigation, communication, advocacy) to change the way housing and related services were normally provided. The better known names that have constituted this community reinvestment infrastructure include National People's Action and National Training and Information Center started by Cincotta, National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), ACORN, Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Federation of America, and, more recently, Americans for Financial Reform.
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