Different media outlets have publicized this story by claiming that this program was just for Black and Latino buyers (pretty racist for a company to sell different products and have different policies for people based on race), while this story says that this program is in historically Black and Latino neighborhoods. Kind of a difference if it's open to all people or not. Which is it?<p>Personally, I'd say that the ''bankers'' are using the guise of ''helping the people of color'' to actually prey on them. This is a slam dunk setup for another government bailout (''Help us Uncle Sam, so many people defaulted on their loans, nobody could see this coming.'') as well as taking control of lots of property during the next economic downturn.
It seems to me a huge bank like Bank of America is well-capitalized to start a huge investment project into a troubled area of a city that will:<p>1. provide wealth to it's residents
2. fix crime and blight
3. help alleviate housing affordability crisis<p>Right now, a troubled area might have housing wealth be 1/4 of a nearby affluent area. But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle of poverty. If you're able to quickly alleviate the crime and poverty, suddenly that troubled area is basically as desirable for housing as the rest of the area.<p>Now, usually, this "gentrification" process has happened slower, over decades, and without the corresponding wealth accrual of its current residents. So it doesn't work out for the current residents and the clash between people is much harsher.<p>But what if all the wealth that was created when a $300k East Oakland home becomes $1m, was equally shared between investment and residents? Could you pay people (give them some type of community job) and/or make sure everyone has housing equity, to break that cycle, stop the crime, so that everyone wins?<p>It feels doable if tackled on a large scale, what am I missing?
Quick reminder to everyone in the thread that this isn't an example of reverse racism, which doesn't exist, nor is it an example of racism, which would require that BofA consider Black and Latino mortgage seekers as <i>superior</i> to Whites based on their race.<p>Not to be all Eeyore, but it's a little exhausting to have any post about any race-conscious action get bogged down by commenters who haven't even read the Wikipedia pages for racism and reverse racism. There's an interesting discussion to be had about these kinds of policies:<p>- housing as infinitely growing store of wealth is probably bad, is it a good idea to get more people on that train? Is it unfair to effectively bar Black and Latino mortgage seekers from the gravy train?<p>- is it a good idea to do this now, as we're descending further into a housing crisis, or are these markets more liquid than others<p>- what are other non-credit-score measures of creditworthiness? Is credit even a good idea? Should the government just back things like mortgages, school, and auto loans?<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism</a><p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_racism" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_racism</a>
As always a token of good faith from bankers only makes sense when viewed through the lens of Gordon Gekko - “It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.”