This book informs a renewed movement for fair lending and fair housing. Leading advocates and specialists examine strategic initiatives to realize objectives of the federal Fair Housing Act as well as state and local laws Well-known fair housing and fair lending activists and organizers examine the implications of the new wave of fair housing activism generated by Occupy Wall Street protests and the many successes achieved in fair housing and fair lending over the years. The book reveals the limitations of advocacy efforts and the challenges that remain. Best directions for future action are brought to light by staff of fair housing organizations, fair housing attorneys, community and labor organizers, and scholars who have researched social justice organizing and advocacy movements. The book is written for general interest and academic audiences. Contributors address the foreclosure crisis, access to credit in a changing marketplace, and the immoral hazards of big banks. They examine opportunities in collective bargaining available to homeowners and how low-income and minority households were denied access to historically low home prices and interest rates. Authors question the effectiveness of litigation to uphold the Fair Housing Act's promise of nondiscriminatory home loans and ask how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is assuring fair lending. They also look at where immigrants stand, housing as a human right, and methods for building a movement.
Chester Hartman is an urban planner, author, and academic. He is currently the director of research at Poverty & Race Research Action Council. Gregory D. Squires is a professor of sociology, public policy, and public administration at George Washington University. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington University, Squires taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and served as a research analyst with the US Commission on Civil Rights.
"Occupy Wall Street's biggest success was its impact on the national conversation. But now, many voices ask, what next? This book offers some important answers. In From Foreclosure to Fair Lending, leading experts and activists in housing and lending practices reflect on how the Occupy spirit revives the historic civil rights and grassroots organizing movements to take on new challenges in a new century." --Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune. "Housing policies and practices are at the center of the ongoing economic crisis in the United States, and the consequences in lost homes and lost savings have been devastating for many Americans. This collection gives us the essential background to understand these developments and support the struggle for social justice in housing that is emerging." --Frances Fox Piven, Graduate School, City University of New York. "Our nation is at a crossroads precipitated by the lending and foreclosure crisis that has the potential of erasing the gains of forty-five years of fair housing/fair lending enforcement. Traditional responses to the current challenges may be reaching the limits of their effectiveness. From Foreclosure to Fair Lending demonstrates another way." --Michael P. Seng, Co-executive Director, The John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center. Housing policies and practices are at the center of the ongoing economic crisis in the United States, and the consequences in lost homes and lost savings have been devastating for many Americans. This collection gives us the essential background to understand these developments and to support the struggle for social justice in housing that is emerging. --Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York Graduate School Occupy Wall Street's biggest success was its impact on the national conversation. But now, many voices ask, what next? This book offers some important answers. In From Foreclosure to Fair Lending, leading experts and activists in housing and lending practices reflect on how the Occupy spirit revives the historic civil rights and grassroots organizing movements to take on new challenges in a new century. --Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune Our nation is at a crossroads precipitated by the lending and foreclosure crisis that has the potential of erasing the gains of forty-five years of fair housing/fair lending enforcement. Traditional responses to the current challenges may be reaching the limits of their effectiveness. From Foreclosure to Fair Lending demonstrates another way. --Michael P. Seng, Co-executive Director, The John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center and Clinic Realizing the objectives of the 1968 Fair Housing Act has long been considered one of the most critical pieces of unfinished business of the civil rights movement. From Foreclosure to Fair Lending shows us what needs to be done to achieve those goals. Hartman and Squires have assembled the nation's leading fair housing advocates and scholars. Given the continuing fallout of the foreclosure debacle, the timing could not be better for this book. --Ben Jealous, President, NAACP
