The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

A new report by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) in partnership with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) shows that minority women are more likely to receive high-cost home mortgage loans than White women.

In many cases, disparities by race widened as income levels increased. The report finds middle- and upper-income African-American women to be a least twice as likely to receive high-cost loans as middle- and upper-income White women in more that 84 percent of the metropolitan areas examined.  Similarly, middle- and upper-income Hispanic women were at least twice as likely to receive high-cost loans as middle- and upper-income White women in 62 percent of the metropolitan areas studied. 

The study suggests that minorities, especially African-American women, are likely to be affected by foreclosures. NCRC and NCNW recommend that Congress strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, to encourage more prime or market-rate lending to working families and communities.