CRL in the News

As we celebrate passage of the Fair Housing Act over 50 years ago, we can’t lose sight of the work that remains for our nation to achieve housing justice.

While the problem of sewer service is well-known in the legal community, empirical data about the issue is limited. In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission recommended states and local jurisdictions take steps to ensure defendants receive notices of their cases. Even after California’s Fair Debt Buyer Protection Act passed in 2013, a 2020 report from the Center for Responsible Lending...

The move made by the government-sponsored enterprises' overseer is right in line with its recommendation, and affordable housing groups like the Center for Responsible Lending and the National Housing Conference also have backed it.

In South Dakota, for instance, a citizen-led referendum in 2014 led to the passage of a 36% annual interest rate cap for financial products sold in the state. Title lenders stopped doing business there, but new credit lenders stepped in, and consumers ended up with more choice and lower interest rates, according to a four-year economic study conducted by the...

More than a dozen commercial websites already offer credit card comparison tools. But the sites often work with a relatively narrow range of large issuers, consumer advocates say, and earn fees when shoppers apply for a card. (Most sites disclose this.) Offerings from smaller banks and credit unions, which may charge lower rates, may not be included. “Comparison sites only...

These companies can also wind up making money when consumers who use them make mistakes, Chabrier noted. “If you have, as many people do, five buy now pay later purchases and you make one false move, then you’re going to get hit with these unexpected fees,” she said, such as late fees if you miss a payment, “and maybe an...

Blue Cross agreed in 1998 to the conversion law that included the provision for a charity trust should it become a for-profit company. Martin Eakes, co-founder of the Self-Help Credit Union and the Center for Responsible Lending helped negotiate the 1998 law. He opposes the new bill. “This bill is a betrayal of the public trust,” Eakes said.

In Rhode Island, people have been advocating for over 13 years against the practice of payday loans, which are high-cost loans structured to perpetuate an ongoing cycle of debt. As the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) explains, “payday lenders are actually providing access to debt, not credit.”

The trend of turning to Buy Now, Pay Later products is concerning because they are not regulated or tracked enough and they don’t count as credit. So it’s easy to accumulate an uncontrollable amount of debt through that, according to Lucia Mattox, the director of western states outreach and senior policy manager at Center for Responsible Lending. “Because they [Buy...

“The Biden-Harris Administration is providing needed breathing room in the tight budgets of families who use FHA mortgages, many of whom are first-time homebuyers, people of color, or individuals with lower-incomes,” said Mitria Spotser, vice president and federal policy director at the Center for Responsible Lending. “By reducing the cost of mortgage insurance premiums, the Administration is putting money back...