Prosperity Indiana, joined by nearly 20 of our members here in Indiana, submitted a public comment opposing proposed changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that would decimate the legal infrastructure that ensures capital reaches low- and moderate-income communities across the country.

As an effort to curb the negative impacts of decades of redlining and exclusionary lending practices, the CRA holds banks to specific standards of community development investment, lending data transparency, and evaluation of products to ensure customers are not being taken advantage of by their financial institution. These standards vary by the size of the bank, and proposed changes would have had the effect of lowering these standards for all banks currently covered by the CRA's requirements.

"Wherever you live, whether or not you know it, your community has benefitted from the framework for accountability created by the Community Reinvestment Act. People have gotten mortgages and small business loans they might otherwise have been denied, nonprofits have accessed capital and received grants, researchers have used data to identify disparate impacts and discriminatory practices," said Aspen Clemons, Executive Director of Prosperity Indiana. "Collaboration between financial institutions and local service providers makes each stronger and more effective in their respective roles. No one benefits from walking that back."

Key Facts and Figures from PI's letter

• CRA rollbacks could jeopardize $87 billion annually in community investments, the equivalent of losing 25 years of community development block grant funding every year
• CRA-qualified lending has channeled $90 billion to low-income Hoosiers in the form of home and business loans since 2010
• In Indiana, 34 of 84 banks would lose any community development obligation, the 8th highest contraction in the nation
• 400 Indiana banks would lose requirements to annually report small business lending, potentially obscuring discriminatory lending patterns
• Indiana could lose 130 bank branches in low- and moderate-income communities, making residents more likely to rely on high-cost alternatives for basic banking services and more vulnerable to predatory actors
• Reduced incentives for the participation of financial institutions could dramatically disrupt and slow the development of affordable housing when it is desperately needed in our state

Can't get enough? Read the comment letters submitted by national coalitions like the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and Prosperity Now.