By Sam Worley June 30, 2011 It’s a dirty word now, but subprime—as in the dubious lending practices blamed for the recent financial crisis—entails, most simply, extending credit to those who don’t often have access to it. People who...
occ_jun2011_OCC-2011-0012_overdraftproposedguidance_0.pdfThis comment letter describes Woodstock Institute concerns with the application of automated overdraft consumer protections to deposit advance loan products or “bank-based payday loans.” Woodstock argues that these types of product are fundamentally different from automated overdraft, has associated...
occ_jun2011_OCC-2011-0006_doddfrankpreemption_0.pdfIn this comment letter submitted to the OCC regarding the implementation of te Dodd-Frank, Woodstock Institute urges the agency to repeal its existing preemption orders, make public its process for the preemption of existing state consumer protections and to...
Key policies of the last decade, such as the Bush Administration’s “Ownership Society,” sought to expand homeownership opportunities without putting in place effective safeguards against unchecked and unscrupulous lenders targeting communities of color with unsustainable mortgage products. Rather than...
By Kerri Panchuk June 28, 2011 Advocacy groups re-ignited a decade-long debate over what role the federal government should play in creating homeownership opportunities for low-income and minority families this week. One such group, the Woodstock Institute, is...
With that concern in mind, Woodstock Institute convened a panel of five of the nation’s top housing finance thinkers from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, CitiMortgage, Community Investment Corporation, and Oak Park Regional Housing...
By Whet Moser June 24, 2011 Trib reporters Antonio Olivo, William Mullen, and Dahleen Glanton have a good piece in today’s paper about how the collapse of the housing bubble has hit Englewood; it’s a good companion to the...
By Antonio Olivo, William Mullen and Dahleen Glanton June 24, 2011 Englewood is rapidly being abandoned, many of its blocks now little more than weed-choked and trash-littered urban prairies. A neighborhood that had long been on the brink was pushed...
Five Dialogues (Plato)— What is and what isn’t? How do we define our beliefs? What is conviction? In Plato’s Five Dialogues, one of Western Philosophies forefathers takes you on a journey forcing you to ask and answer difficult...
With this new regulation, the USDA would exempt certain retirement and savings accounts from being counted as assets that could disqualify you from SNAP, a major step forward to help the tens of millions of families reliant on this...