Enterprise: Community Developments: Study Highlights Connection between Access to Mortgage Loans and Race

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• Fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in lending, African Americans and Latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts, according to a new analysis by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. The analysis, which is based on all records publicly available under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, shows that black applicants were denied mortgage loans at significantly higher rates than their counterpart white applicants in 48 cities, Latino applicants in 25, Asian applicants in nine and Native American applicants in three. It controlled for nine economic and social factors, including an applicant's income, the amount of the loan, the ratio of the size of the loan to the applicant's income and the type of lender; however, credit score was not included because that information is not publicly available. According to the analysis, there is a pattern of troubling denials for people of color across the country, including major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis and San Antonio. (The Associated Press, February 15)