Press Releases

A Congressional committee did the right thing today by approving a 36-percent cap on payday loans to military personnel that will protect them from these predatory lenders. It was a victory for the Pentagon; the consumer, civil rights and veterans groups who stood up with it; and Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FLA), who introduced the amendment. But most of all, it was a victory for our soldiers, sailors and aviators, many of whom had faced the awful choice of paying grocery bills and rent or the usurious fees on their payday loans every two weeks. "At a time when America's

The Center for Responsible Lending commends federal regulators who said today they would start requiring lenders to consider whether a borrower can repay when they make certain kinds of home loans. But the regulators missed the boat in helping all the consumers at risk from mortgages that could blow up on them. Lenders have sold billions of dollars of complicated, difficult-to-understand adjustable-rate option mortgages to homebuyers in the last few years without regard to their ability to repay. As the banks pushed more people into buying houses they couldn't afford, the housing market boomed

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 losing valuable home equity or foreclosure." Hybrid ARMs and nontraditional mortgage products in the subprime market are structured to cause families to fail. Mortgage brokers and lenders

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 in five, or 19%. Some lenders and their lobbyists will claim that these disparities occur because minorities pose higher financial risks and so get charged more for a loan. The Center for Responsible Lending, which

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 loans to service members at 36 percent. That is the limit many states impose in their usury statutes to ban loan-sharking. Payday borrowers, using a signed a postdated check as collateral, often end up paying more than $800 to borrow $340. The Senate

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 will fall short as the legislative session ends this week. "We may have missed a chance to keep our service people out of the clutches of predators," said Paul Leonard, director of the California office

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 states impose in their usury laws in order to ban loansharking. The report said these lenders damage morale and hurt our military preparedness. Payday lenders typically require borrowers to endorse a postdated

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 their families. It means our military is less prepared. And it potentially dangerously distracts soldiers, sailors and aviators from their mission. Senators Talent and Nelson amended the Defense Authorization Bill (Senate Bill 2766) to

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 post indicates that advancing CRL's issues in Congress and nationwide is becoming increasingly important to the organization, which also does research on predatory lending. Predatory lending occurs in subprime

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