Does the Community Reinvestment Act Encourage Integration of Urban Communities? Mortgage Lending, Homeownership and Black Wealth Accumulation in Metropolitan America


July 1, 2002

Funding: The Ford Foundation

Summary: This paper, which has been revised and resubmitted to Social Problems, examines the extent to which the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has helped racial minorities purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods from which they have traditionally been excluded. Using 2000 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reports (HMDA) and 2000 decennial census data, we find that in metropolitan areas where a relatively high proportion of loans are made by institutions covered by the CRA, blacks and Latinos are more likely to purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods than in areas where relatively fewer loans are made by such lenders. This finding holds after controlling for a range of socioeconomic characteristics.

 

Researchers

Gregory Squires

Products

Does the Community Reinvestment Act Help Minorities Access Traditionally Inaccessible Neighborhoods?

May 01, 2005

Does the Community Reinvestment Act Help Minorities Access Traditionally Inaccessible Neighborhoods?

July 08, 2004