Archives

August 2007

Barack Obama: "predatory lenders... driving low-income families into financial ruin"

Posted at 10:25 AM, Aug. 29, 2007

LONDON --- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama published an essay in today's Financial Times, the European equivalent of a Wall Street Journal without the Rupert Murdoch. 

Quoth Obama:

The implosion of the subprime lending industry is more than a temporary blip in our econ­omic progress. It is a cancer that, given today’s integrated financial markets, threatens to spread with devastating impact to housing and to our economy as a whole, unless we act to contain it.

It is also a parable about how an excess of lobbying and influence can defeat common sense rules of the road, placing both consumers and our nation’s economic well-being at risk.

While predatory lenders were driving low-income families into financial ruin, 10 of the country's largest mortgage lenders were spending more than $185m (€136m, £92m) lobbying Washington to let them get away with it," he wrote, citing figures from the Centre for Responsive Politics.

We can't link to the article without a subscription, but Financial Times correspondents Jeremy Grant and Eoin Callan in Washington posted a linkable, likable analysis of Obama's essay that offers another glimpse or two:

...Mr Obama blamed lobbyists working on behalf of lenders for obstructing tougher regulation of the subprime industry, adding: "Our government failed to provide the regulatory scrutiny that could have prevented this crisis.

Grant and Callan report that Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, also a Democratic presidential candidate and a Senator from Connecticut, and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-MA, think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could help pick up the slack if the Bush administration would lift caps on the giant mortgage lenders' portfolios. But their main focus is Obama's 'radical proposal.'

Mr Obama said the government needed to "stop the unlicensed, unregulated, fly-by-night mortgage brokers who are hoodwinking low-income borrowers into loans they can't afford".

He added that "Washington needs to stop acting like an industry advocate and start acting like a public advocate".

Many thanks to Jerome a Paris of the European Tribune for alerting us about this via DailyKos.com.

FloridaCRED.org eyes 'new generation' of affordable community developers

Posted at 8:37 AM, Aug. 27, 2007

TAMPA, Fla. --- Calling all community developers: the Community Real Estate Development (CRED) Professional Certificate program at the University of South Florida, a unique summer seminar course at USF's Collaborative for Children, Families and Communities that's guiding 26 participants through development of six projects with more than 120 affordable homes and apartments, has launched www.FloridaCred.org to provide an online learning resource and a forum for new community development concepts.

Former Bank of America training executive and HUD official Thomas M. Zuniga, left, told Miami Herald Business Monday editor Nancy Dahlberg last week, "We want to birth a new generation of community developers. It's no longer about being a do-gooder. Affordable housing is a major economic issue."

Zuniga, managing director of DSG Community Marketing Services, serves as Program Manager and Principal Instructor of the CRED Certificate Program.

Zuniga posted Launching FloridaCRED yesterday to mark the event.

Expanding the supply of housing that is affordable to and attainable by working families has become increasingly complex.  My wish is to expand our University of South Florida Community Real Estate Development classroom by using technology to create a "big tent" campaign for affordable housing through increased awareness and understanding of affordable housing issues.

I hope for our site to become a listening post for the many voices of affordable housing---a place where students and practitioners of community development can brainstorm possibilities, advance innovative ideas and recognize best practices.

I would like for us to use FloridaCred.org to establish a knowledge base on affordable housing and to that end, just like with our classroom, I promise to recruit local and regional experts who will weigh in on various topics through writings and interviews, and thereby foster dialogue.

The web-based project---privately funded through August, 2008---means to examine relevant affordable housing and community development issues, best practices, new concepts and new partnership, funding and development opportunities in an open, online symposium with an academic focus.

Quoth Zuniga:

I am inviting colleagues new and old to weigh in on the various topics that are relevant to our business.

This is the new "Journal of Community Development."