How One NCLR Affiliate is Helping Low-Income Latinos Build Wealth
Agatha So, Policy Analyst, Economic Policy Project, NCLR
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Stories
How Will Secretary Carson Engage Latino Homebuyers?
Many questions remain for Dr. Ben Carson, who last month was officially sworn in as our newest Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Since his January 12 confirmation hearing, many are still wondering how Dr. Carson will fulfill HUD’s mission and carry out the critical task of providing affordable rental and homeownership opportunities—free from discrimination—for all Americans. On March 28, Secretary Carson had an opportunity to discuss his housing policy priorities at the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals Conference. It was an important audience for Secretary Carson—the Association represents the largest group of Hispanic real estate professionals, whose primary mission is getting Latinos into homes. This is a critical constituency, because Latinos are...
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Celebrating Financial Capability Efforts to Support Latino Financial Well-being
Financial Capability Counseling gives Latino families the information and tools needed to improve credit, increase savings, and build wealth. Through participation in a financial capability program, Latino families can access a range of resources and learn how to use skill-building tools and financial products that will help them achieve their financial goals, such as homeownership. For Affiliate partners of the NCLR Homeownership Network (NHN), building families’ financial capability has never been more important. Because of the financial crisis nearly a decade ago, millions of Latino families saw their savings disappear when they lost their homes to foreclosure. At the same time, a rise in unemployment among Latino workers made it harder for families to the get the assistance they needed to save their homes....
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Not All Asian Elderly Are Well Off
Video of Fox News personality Jesse Watters disrespecting Chinese people on the streets of New York’s Chinatown went viral last October. In the segment on the network’s “The O’Reilly Factor”, Watters mockingly interviews an elderly woman who apparently can’t understand him. As she stands there in silence, the piece cuts to a clip of Madeline Kahn from the movie “Young Frankenstein,” shrieking, “Speak! Speak! Why don’t you speak!” The clip was viewed over 2 million times, and people voiced outrage over how Watters treated the elderly Chinese woman and generally mocked Chinatown residents. For me, the video highlighted how little mainstream Americans understand Asian Americans and its older population. It also sheds light on how our communities are often disparagingly treated...
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Three Key Findings on Hispanics with Debt in Collection: Results from CFPB’s Recent Survey
Debt collection in the Latino community is a critical consumer protection issue for one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing communities. Latino families need access to affordable credit but have been historically excluded or discriminated from safe financial products. A result of this persistent economic injustice is that Latinos and other consumers who have been outside of the financial mainstream are vulnerable to financial shock, such as with health-related expenses or a job loss. Having been sidelined from affordable products, Latinos have little choice but to turn to more expensive credit to pay for their expenses. To illustrate, 39% of Hispanics households used an alternative financial product (such as a payday loan) in 2015, compared to just 17% of White...
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