Geoff Smith and Sarah Duda

 

This report summarizes key foreclosure trends in the Chicago region for 2008 and updates Woodstock Institute reports and fact sheets released previously that illustrated key aspects of the foreclosure crisis such as the spread of the crisis to suburban communities, the potential impact of the foreclosures on Chicago’s affordable rental housing market, and the growing number of foreclosures that were becoming bank-owned properties and likely sitting vacant. The report includes detailed appendices with data for City of Chicago community areas and municipalities in the Chicago Six County Area.

Profiles model small business lending programs around the country that target modest-income communities. Examples include bank-community partnerships, specialized bank units, multibank efforts, government-administered programs, and CDFIs. The report also offers lessons for effectively reaching underserved markets.

Explains the importance of small business development to modest-income urban neighborhoods, including discussions of access-to-credit problems and the role of CRA and economic development finance in these markets. Provides a framework for developing strategies for addressing small business financing needs in targeted markets.

Illustrates the quantitative relationship between the level of subprime lending in a neighborhood and foreclosure levels in a subsequent period, while controlling for changes in economic and demographic characteristics that might also effect foreclosure rates.

Katy Jacob, Malcolm Bush, and Daniel Immergluck

This report examines the reality of credit unions' claim that they honor the mission stated in the Federal Credit Union Act to meet the savings and credit needs of "persons of modest means." The report also discusses why it is so important that credit unions fulfill this statutory responsibility and how they might do so more effectively in the future.

 

The report documents the decline in personal savings rates while explaining the recent saving incentive for lower-income people created by the federal Pension Protection Act of 2006.  While the credit is a modest step in the right direction for providing lower-income people the level of incentives currently provided to middle- and upper-income people, the report recommends that it be made refundable to expand its benefits to all income qualified tax payers.

This alert examines the service test evaluations of Chicago area large banks and thrifts to determine what information on services is collected and analyzed during the test procedures and looks at how regulators use these data to assess service test performance. The alert also discusses the limitations of the available data and makes recommendations for steps that might be taken to improve the effectiveness of the service test performance evaluation.