Imagine that
on April 16th, 2009 at 10:33 amAccording to this article, OneUnited (Black-owned bank) made FEW urban loans.
In 2005 and 2006, OneUnited made only nine home mortgages in Massachusetts, according to a regulatory report, and in 2007 just three mortgages across its markets in Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami – two of those loans on multifamily properties – according to a banking consultant who reviewed the loan portfolio.
[...]
But the recipients of these loans are a far cry from the sort of customers the bank referred to in its Sept. 6 letter to the US Treasury: “Unlike majority banks, which principally focus on profit, the express mission of minority banks is to promote these underbanked, underprivileged communities,” the bank’s chief counsel, Robert Cooper, wrote.
[...]
Even before the regulators’ order last fall, OneUnited had drawn modest or poor grades for its lending. In a 2007 Community Reinvestment Act review by regulators, the bank received a “satisfactory” grade for its lending in Boston during 2005 and 2006, due to “quite low” volumes of home loans, and was tagged with “substantial noncompliance” for its lack of lending in Miami. Only in California did OneUnited received an outstanding grade.
[...]
“We knew this bubble was developing in residential housing” as early as 2004, Cohee said in an interview. “If we had participated in inner-city housing lending, . . . we would have been out of business.”
But when bigger and Whiter banks said the same thing, it was called “lending discrimination”.
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