As the recession drags on, policymakers and community leaders are searching for strategies to encourage job creation, investment in neighborhoods, and a return to economic stability. The findings from our latest report, however, depict troubling barriers to recovery—particularly in communities hit hardest by the financial crisis.

Community leaders turned out in force at the Community Reinvestment Act hearing held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on August 12 (see photos). The Chicago hearing was the third of four such hearings being held by federal banking regulators this summer to discuss whether and how to revise rules implementing the CRA’s requirement that federally insured depository banks meet the credit and financial services needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income communities, consistent with safe and sound practices. The CRA became law in 1977 and current CRA rules have not been updated since 1995.

Now that President Obama has signed the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) into law, what’s next? The media are currently obsessed with whom the President will select as the first director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (we agree it must be a strong CFPB director with a pro-consumer track record), but there is much more on the horizon.

In a Washington Post article entitled “From the oil spill to the financial crisis,” U.S. Court of Appeals Judge and author Richard Posner described some of the reasons why we don’t adequately prepare for risks. Regarding the financial crisis, for example, he said,

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has refused requests of Woodstock Institute and colleagues for a meeting to discuss the deleterious effects of its consumer lending and mortgage loan modification practices on our communities, but I finally got a chance to speak to him directly at the Chase shareholder meeting in New York on May 18.

As some of us scramble to file our income tax returns, others have long since filed. Unfortunately, many lower-wealth tax filers who need the assistance of tax preparers got ripped off with high-cost preparation fees and refund anticipation loans, or RALs – to the tune of $114 million in Illinois in 2006 alone. Faster delivery of refunds by the Internal Revenue Service and a little patience by tax filers can eliminate the demand for RALs, but many will still need the assistance of tax preparers to file their returns. How can tax filers pay for tax preparation services without getting caught up in RALs?