Press Releases

Today the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) registered major disappointment with a bailout proposal that fails to address the root causes of today's economic crisis. While agreeing that the current situation calls for substantial government intervention, the Center says the plan that emerged is neither effective nor fair. "Any plan that fails to stop foreclosures will ultimately fail to fix the crisis," said Michael Calhoun, president of CRL. "Wall Street firms and banks caused a massive foreclosure crisis in this country, and this bailout provides no meaningful way to end it. It doesn't

My name is Candace Weaver and I'm an eighth grade teacher at Roland Grise Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina. I teach 8th grade language arts and social studies. In December 2005, I refinanced my house to pay bills. My husband was recovering from a heart attack and was out of work. We took out an adjustable rate mortgage with an initial rate of 8.85% that eventually went up to 11.375% two years later. I didn't understand I had an adjustable rate mortgage that could go up from 8.85% to 11.85% after two years. I certainly did not know it could go up as high as 15.85% and that it had a

A Sample of What Leaders Are Saying … Wall Street aggressively marketed loans that were damaging, deceptive, and led to the worst foreclosure epidemic in decades. The government's so-called solution bails out the very companies that were behind this crisis, but does absolutely nothing to help people stay in their homes. This country is facing the greatest lost of wealth since the Great Depression and Congress needs to step up for ordinary citizens." - Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Founder/President Rainbow Push Coalition * * * Government regulators were blind while mortgage lenders and investors

The Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights passage today in the House signals a return to real consumer protections and a welcome change to credit card company business as usual. The Center for Responsible Lending commends Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank who championed the legislation, which will restore some balance and fairness to a regulatory system that has been too one-sided for far too long. We call on the Senate Leadership to follow the actions of the House in moving a companion bill toward the same outcome. For more information: Kathleen Day at (202) 349

Hello, I'm Martin Eakes, founder and head of Self Help, one of the nation's largest community development institutions, and I'm also the CEO of the Center for Responsible Lending. I appreciate the invitation from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to be here today. The Paulson $700 billion bailout simply will not work to stabilize the economy if it does not address the underlying problem of home foreclosures and falling home prices. As proposed, the bailout has virtually nothing of benefit to middle-class homeowners facing distress. According to Credit Suisse, 6.5 million homes will be

The government plan announced by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke fails to deal with the root cause of the crisis---families in foreclosure----and instead is purely and simply a bailout of the lenders who created this disaster. The bailout will not solve our economic problems because it will do virtually nothing to stop the foreclosure epidemic. Continuing foreclosures will drag down the economy even further. A truly comprehensive plan must also benefit ordinary, hard-working Americans, the ones who already are bearing the brunt of Wall Street's excesses. If it doesn't

Over 700 payday lenders across the state of Arizona charge up to 459 percent annual interest on loans that trap their customers in long-term debt, finds a new report from the Center for Responsible Lending. A ballot measure on which the payday lending industry has spent $9 million so far to market in the state as "reform" would only reduce the interest rate to 391 percent, and cancel the 2010 expiration of an exemption for payday lenders from the 36 percent cap that covers other lenders. "Proposition 200 is not real reform,´ said Attorney General Terry Goddard, announcing his opposition to the

Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are the latest corporate casualties in the financial crisis caused by abusive loans from reckless lenders. Even the former chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association now concedes that brokers, lenders and investors "forgot about [their] customers" because "making money and our commission checks were more important." In short, these loans never should have been made. The failure of Lehman and forced sale of Merrill underscore the need for stronger regulation of the mortgage market to prevent this from recurring, and, if we want to fix the economy, the need to

The preliminary report issued today by Federal Reserve Board on mortgages made in 2007 suggests that troubling lending patterns of years past persisted, with Latino and African-American families continuing to receive a disproportionate share of high-cost, subprime home loans compared with non-Hispanic white families. Though the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has not finished a full analysis of the information, which the Fed collects under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), an initial review shows that abusive lending patterns continued even though the number of higher-cost

Today Martin Eakes, CEO of Self Help and the Center for Responsible Lending, issued the following statement in response to the government's decision to take control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: "Avoiding foreclosures that don't need to happen is our country's best hope for economic recovery. Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have the full backing of the U.S. government, they have the flexibility required to implement mortgage modifications quickly, systematically and fairly. The need for meaningful, large-scale modifications is urgent; preventing foreclosures should be the test by which we