Press Releases

Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, urged policymakers to address high-risk "exploding" ARMs in the subprime market before subcommittees of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs today. "Nontraditional loans in the subprime market are seriously eroding the traditional benefits of homeownership," said Mr. Calhoun. "By their very nature, they pose a high risk of...

The Federal Reserve today released figures showing once again that African-Americans and Latinos pay more for mortgages than white borrowers. Data collected from lenders for 2005 show that a majority of loans (52%) to African-Americans and more than one in three loans (40%) to Latinos were higher-cost. White borrowers received a much lower portion of higher cost loans, only one...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 7, 2006) – Congress should act to protect the people protecting us – our soldiers, sailors and aviators – from predators who trap them in loans with annual interest rates as high as 400 percent. Michael D. Calhoun, CRL president, joined Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) and Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) to endorse an amendment to cap payday...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Predatory payday lenders will continue to gouge soldiers, sailors and aviators in California with more than 400 percent interest on loans thanks to the payday-lending industry's intense lobbying of state legislators. High-ranking Navy and Marine officers, consumer groups and their allies in the legislature tried to ban this sort of predatory lending, but it looks like they...

A Defense Department study sent to Congress yesterday shows that Congress must stop predatory lenders from preying on our soldiers, sailors and aviators, said President Michael Calhoun of the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. The Pentagon report says payday lenders should charge no more than 36 percent annual percentage rates on their loans to service members, the same cap many...

More than 70 consumer and veterans groups are calling on Congress to enact an amendment by Sen. Jim Talent (R-Missouri) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) to protect military families from payday lenders, who trap borrowers in a vicious cycle of debt at interest rates of more than 400 percent a year. This predatory business doesn't just ravage service members and...

Martin Eakes, CEO of the Center for Community Self-Help, named Michael D. Calhoun president of the Center for Responsible Lending. Calhoun has lobbied and litigated for poor people and their issues, especially predatory lending, for more than 30 years. Calhoun, formerly general counsel, had been the center's lead lobbyist in Washington and state capitals for years. His acceptance of the...

TITLE SOURCE DATE Separate and Unequal Justice: The Case Against Binding Mandatory Arbitration for Homebuyers Center for Responsible Lending 02/24/05 -

Most people assume they can take their grievances to court if a lender violates the law. Unfortunately, many borrowers are denied that option through "binding mandatory arbitration" (BMA), a common clause in loan contracts. Barred from bringing claims to court, victims of abusive lending practices frequently find that their loan contracts require them to go through arbitration: proceedings conducted in...

African-Americans and Latinos, government figures show, get high-interest sub-prime mortgages far more often than whites. Now researchers at the Center for Responsible Lending find those disparities persist even when the borrowers have the same qualifications as whites. Lenders say they charge more because African-Americans and Latinos tend to have shakier credit histories, which makes lending to them riskier. But that...