I am taking my first child to college this week. He is excited about being a freshman and taking interesting classes in history and other subjects. I realize how very fortunate he is to have this opportunity and how many other students lack the financial resources to go to college. There are others still who have not had the family support or educational opportunities to even think about college.

One of the exciting aspects of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which opened its doors on July 21, is that we finally have a federal regulator for non-bank financial institutions, like independent mortgage lenders and payday lenders. But the CFPB will not have the authority the regulate other non-bank financial institutions, like consumer finance companies, debt settlement companies or prepaid card providers unless it finds that they are larger participants in the market. It’s heartening to see that one of the CFPB’s first orders of business is to define the scope of non-bank financial institutions it will regulate so it can get to work protecting consumers regardless of where they conduct their financial business.

This week, our staff takes an interest in data on Cook County expenditures and federal housing programs, how man and dog became intertwined, and the prospect of pumping oil through one of North America’s largest rainforests.

It’s well established that when a homeowner owes more on their home than it’s worth, they’re more likely to go into foreclosure. For the most part, government foreclosure prevention programs are not designed to help these underwater homeowners—instead, they focus on issues of affordability. Lowering monthly payments would help homeowners who go into foreclosure because they can’t afford their mortgage, but it wouldn’t necessarily change the incentive to pay for a deeply underwater homeowner. One program that does address underwater loans is the Principal Reduction Alternative (PRA) portion of the Making Home Affordable initiative, introduced in February of last year. Treasury recently released data on the progress of PRA as part of its monthly HAMP reports.

The CFPB is soliciting a third round of comments on its Know Before You Owe project to simplify disclosure forms used in the mortgage process.  The agency last week extended the deadline to this Wednesday.

The Chicago City Council unanimously passed an ordinance recently that would hold mortgage servicers accountable for maintaining the thousands of vacant homes stuck in the foreclosure process without resolution. We estimate that these abandoned vacant homes can cost Chicago up to $36 million annually.

As the number of foreclosure filings continue to outpace loan modifications and other foreclosure prevention strategies, more and more homes are becoming vacant in the Chicago region. More than 95 percent of completed foreclosures in the six-county region in 2010 became owned by their lenders and likely remain vacant, data from Woodstock Institute show. Moving families back into these homes would counteract the destabilizing influences of vacancy and set neighborhoods on the path to recovery. While new household formation is on the rise and should contribute to an increased demand for homeownership, access to mortgage credit has become sharply constricted.

“American payroll and household formation numbers are actually on the rise. Traditionally, this would mean that these households, with increasing capital, would naturally look to invest in a home, but getting the loan to do so is on a downward trajectory.

I tend to be a “glass half full” optimist, so I’m pretty happy about the launch of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on July 21. Having a regulator that looks out for the interests of consumers is definitely something to celebrate.

Legislation that would regulate rent-to-own stores has popped up in Illinois and in D.C., but neither bill has strong enough protections for consumers of this extremely high-cost service. The national legislation is particularly harmful—it would prohibit stores from disclosing the interest rate on rent-to-own transactions and preempt stronger state laws. On the eve of the launch of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, these industry-backed bills remind us why we badly need a strong consumer watchdog with the authority to regulate financial transactions that occur outside of traditional banks.