WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Minorities in the United States are more likely than whites to have their homes seized by banks because of lender abuses and weak regulation, according to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and MFY Legal Services report issued on Tuesday.
“Minority borrowers have more difficulty in obtaining mortgage modifications and thus stand a greater chance of unnecessarily losing their home to foreclosure,” the report said. “The most segregated communities are particularly vulnerable to these harmful loan servicing failures and abuses.”
The two advocacy organizations collected information on homeowner complaints filed with the Consumer Safety Protection Bureau, which revealed that minority homeowners disproportionately raised concerns about problems that put them at immediate risk of losing their homes.
Almost 70 percent of homeowners in heavily minority areas complained about serious problems that put them at immediate risk of having their homes seized, while only 57 percent of whites raised such issues, according to the report.
The findings are consistent with other research on racial disparities in the housing crisis. A report by the advocacy group Center for Responsible Lending found that African-Americans and Latinos were more than 70 percent more likely to lose their homes to foreclosure.
Government regulators have failed to enforce laws intended to prevent lending discrimination, according to Tuesday’s report.
“It’s as if the government doesn't want to see what is really happening in communities of color,” attorney Elizabeth M. Lynch, one of the report’s co-authors, said in a statement.
At the height of the US housing crisis in 2010, 4.6 percent of all home loans were in the process of foreclosure, according to the Congressional Research Service.
