March 3, 2016
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced a settlement in a mortgage discrimination case involving First Federal Bank of Kansas City.
According to a press release at the FHA/HUD official site, “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today an agreement with First Federal Bank of Kansas City to resolve allegations of redlining against African American mortgage applicants. HUD and two fair housing organizations claimed the lenders designated service area effectively excluded African American neighborhoods, limiting residential mortgage lending to persons based upon their race.”
Federal law makes it illegal to discriminate against mortgage loan applicants or anyone seeking housing because of their race. According to the press release, “Homeownership should never be affected by the color of a persons skin. This agreement helps to ensure that all qualified families in the Kansas City area get a fair shot at owning their own home, regardless of race, according to HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Gustavo Velasquez, who was quoted in the release. He adds HUD will continue to work with banks across the nation to ensure they follow the Fair Housing Act.
The agreement follows complaints filed in 2015, by the nonprofit organizations Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council (EHOC) and Legal Aid of Western Missouri.
According to the HUD official site, “The groups alleged the banks lack of market penetration in African-American communities in the urban core (East Side) of Kansas City, Missouri made residential real estate products less available to people based on race. The groups also alleged that the bank designated its service area, or assessment area, in a way that excluded areas of high African American concentration, which resulted in making residential real estate products less available to persons based on race, a practice commonly known as redlining.”
We write about settlements like these to encourage all borrowers to report illegal practices like the ones mentioned above. Sometimes the only thing that stops such illegal activity from occurring again is the complaint registered by the victims. Without reporting such discrimination, it is able to continue.
If you feel you have experienced discrimination in the lending process or at any step of the way in your journey toward finding a place to live, file a complaint by contacting HUDs Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at (800) 669-9777 (voice) or (800) 927-9275 (TTY). Housing discrimination complaints may also be filed at www.hud.gov/fairhousing.
Do you work in residential real estate? You should know about the free tool offered by FHA.com. It is designed especially for real estate websites; a widget that displays FHA loan limits for the counties serviced by those sites. It is simple to spend a few seconds customizing the state, counties, and widget size for the tool; you can copy the code and paste it into your website with ease. Get yours today:
http://www.fha.com/fha_loan_limits_widget
Joe Wallace has been specializing in military and personal finance topics since 1995. His work has appeared on Air Force Television News, The Pentagon Channel, ABC and a variety of print and online publications. He is a 13-year Air Force veteran and a member of the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association. He was Managing editor for www.valoans.com for (8) years and is currently the Associate Editor for FHANewsblog.com.
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