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82 In 61 metro areas across the country, blacks were found to be more likely than whites to be denied a conventional mortgage loan. Moreover, while the number of nonbank mortgage lenders is on the rise, these businesses are not required to adhere to the Community Reinvestment Act—a law that requires banks to meet the credit needs of the community, including those of low- to moderate-income borrowers. According to the Center's April 11 Reveal newswire, "Since President Donald Trump took office, the Justice Department has not sued a single lender for failing to lend to people of color." Beyond a failure to enforce this essential law, the Trump Administration has also included fair housing among its overall regulatory reversals. HUD effectively suspended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule by delaying implementation until at least October of 2020. e rule was adopted in 2015 to carry out critical goals under the Fair Housing Act, working to end discrimination in housing and foster inclusive communities. e White House also signed into law the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, a bank deregulation bill that includes a provision that would exempt 85 percent of banks from reporting Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) requirements that are needed to help root out discrimination in mortgage lending. News reports earlier this year stated that HUD Secretary Ben Carson wanted to remove references to "inclusive" communities "free from discrimination" from the organization's mission statement. e draft statement now reads: "HUD's mission is to ensure Americans have access to fair, affordable housing and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency, thereby strengthening our communities and nation." e Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity at the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP, formerly the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) was moved out of the Office of Supervision and Enforcement and into the Office of Education and Engagement. e staff would be transferred to an office focused on education, obstructing their ability to ensure robust enforcement of the fair lending laws. e Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also issued a proposal that will weaken the Community Reinvestment Act, which is a fair lending law that has been crucial in expanding financial access to communities that have long faced—and still face—discrimination. Each year, the Center for Responsible Lending prepares an analysis of the annual Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) report. Published each fall, the report is the only federal data report that tracks mortgage lending by race, ethnicity, and locale. e most recent analysis (2016) found continuing mortgage denial rates for consumers of color. In this reporting year, African-Americans and Hispanic White applicants continue to have the highest mortgage denial rates. Furthermore, although 2,123,000 conventional loans were approved in 2016, consumers of color received a combined 187,958 conventional loans, or 9 percent of the nation's conventional mortgage loans that year. By contrast, 324,566 non-conventional mortgage loans were approved in 2016 for African-Americans and Hispanic Whites. At a time when mortgage rates are at their lowest, it is crucial to the nation's economy that consumers take advantage of those historically low interest rates. Broad access to the most cost-efficient mortgages (i.e., conventional loans) would increase the strength of our still- recovering economy. Today's rates of homeownership between whites and people of color are not the result of luck. Instead, they are the direct result of federal housing policy that has explicitly provided homeownership opportunities to white Americans while denying them to people of color. e federal government's adoption of the Home Owners Loan Corporation's underwriting guidelines in 1933, including redlining policies in the administration of its federally insured mortgage programs, institutionalized racial discrimination. A report by Prosperity Now, an organization that works to ensure that everyone in our country has a clear path to financial stability, wealth, and prosperity, showed that, due to redlining, only two percent of Federal Housing Administration- insured mortgage loans went to homebuyers of color during the first 35 years of the program. In the state of Mississippi alone, just two out of 3,229 Veterans Affairs-insured mortgages went to African-Americans servicemembers seeking to finance a home or business within the first three years of the program. is federal action provided whites with a head start in building wealth in the form of home equity through homeownership. at wealth has been transferred across generations and is a significant contributor to today's racial wealth gap. White Americans now have ten times the wealth of Latinos and twelve times the wealth of African-Americans, according to Pew. Specifically, whites have a median wealth of $141,900, compared to $13,700 and $11,000 for non-Hispanic whites and African-Americans, respectively. According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at the Brandeis Center In this reporting year, African- American and Hispanic White applicants continue to have the highest mortgage denial rates. Furthermore, although 2,123,000 conventional loans were approved in 2016, consumers of color received a combined 187,958 conventional loans, or 9 percent of the nation's conventional loans that year.

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