[sudo-discuss] Impact of discriminatory lending practices in Oakland.

The attached images of Oakland demographic data illustrate the striking contrast of foreclosure rates between predominately black neighborhoods (shown in red) and predominately white neighborhoods (shown in blue). Final foreclosures are indicated by black dots and show foreclosures that have occurred within the last 3 1/2 years, between 2009 to 2013. Minority neighborhoods targeted by lending institutions through high proportions of subprime mortgages suffered an epidemic of foreclosures that left boarded-up homes on which the repossessing financial institutions often failed to perform routine maintenance. From Jamaica, Queens, New York, to Oakland, California, strong, middle class African American neighborhoods saw nearly two decades of gains reversed in a matter of not years—but months” (Donovan 2011). In some predominantly African American blocks of the middle-class Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, for example, as many as one-third of the homes were vacant after foreclosures on subprime borrowers. “The moral outrage,” observed the Shaker Heights mayor, “is that subprime lenders have targeted our seniors and African-Americans, people who saved all their lives to get a step up” (Eckholm 2007). http://www.epi.org/publication/bp335-boa-countrywide-discriminatory-lending/ The racially targeted predatory lending practices of major financial institutions which are sanctioned by regulatory agencies have resulted in marked decreases of black populations within Oakland in the last decade. See http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Oakland.htm