Housing/Mortgages
The federal government has been involved in housing since the formation of a Congressional commission in 1892 to investigate slum conditions in the nation’s cities. During WWI and WWII the federal government constructed and managed housing for defense workers and military personnel. Since the National Housing Act was signed into law by FDR in 1934 the federal government has helped middle and working class families acquire home loans through regulation of savings and loan industry, subsidized loans and other mechanisms. These policies have transformed and dramatically expanded the opportunity for homeownership and helped to create the middle class in the U.S.
Cry Wolf Quotes
You call it a National Housing Act. I hope, if you pass this bill—God grant that you don’t, but if you do, I hope you will change it from ‘National Housing Act’ and call it ‘National housing bill’, with the accent on the ‘bill’; because the only possible excuse for calling this a housing act is that the home owners of the country are going to pay the bill, and they are going to pay in two ways. They are going to pay as home owners, and then they are going to pay again as taxpayers. There is not another excuse for calling this a housing act. You might as well call a savings-bank law a baby-fund law; an insurance law, a widows’ and orphans’ fund, as to call this thing a housing act, drawn in the interest of the home owner. If you want any other evidence of it, I will call your attention to the fact that every one of the nongovernmental witnesses who have appeared before this committee are either money-lending brokers—most of them were that—or they are the business men who make money out of home owners.
I do not see that it is the function of Congress to tell me whether I shall take a straight loan or whether I shall take an amortized loan. It does not make any difference to me whether you tell it to me in blunt terms through officials here in Washington, or whether you so rig the financial market that I must steer the course that you lay out for me. I do not think that we ought to expect such legislation from legislators who represent a party that stands for initiative, for the rights of the States, and the rights of the community. I do not think we are going to get it from them.
…this board of 5 to 7 men in Washington can determine what is socially desirable housing in every community in the land, and under the powers conferred they can make their judgments effective. Call it by any name you choose the smell of such regimentation of American homes will be the same in the nostrils of the American home-owning public.
What is more, I do not believe that the home-owning family, with its back against the wall, fighting for the protection of its children, fighting for a way to live in some other way than on Mr. Hopkins’ relief rolls is going to jeopardize the family shelter for any such purpose. I think it is nothing short of a crime to use the money of the taxpayers to incite people to go into debts they do not know how they are going to meet and by which they are going further to jeopardize the family shelter.
Related Laws and Rules
Evidence
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Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Shuts Down Critics of the Community Reinvestment Act
The Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with the subprime crisis.
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Community Reinvestment Act Did Not Fuel the Subprime Crisis
The Community Reinvestment Act did not create an overabundance of risky loans.
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Inclusionary Housing: A Good Solution to Create Affordable Housing
In defense of inclusionary housing.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Good Rules: Ten Stories Of Successful Regulation
Demos looks at ten laws and rules that we take for granted.
Community Reinvestment Act Policy Brief
By Philip Ashton, UIC
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has been critical to the expansion of responsible credit for low- and moderate-income borrowers since its passage in 1977.
Resources
The Center for Responsible Lending promotes and advocates legislation to defend lower income Americans from abusive or predatory lending practices.
