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With little data, panel plans talk on foreclosures and minorities
Thursday, June 11, 2009 | 2 a.m.
If You Go
- What: A town-hall discussion about foreclosure problems in Southern Nevada
- When: 7-9 p.m. today
- Where: County Commission chambers, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway
- Broadcasts: Live on Clark County TV, cable channel 4. Panel discussion will be taped for broadcasts on KNPR 88.9-FM and KCEP 88.1-FM.
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- KNPR to host town hall meeting on mortgage crisis (6-10-2009)
- Nevadans may be key to new push on immigration (5-30-2009)
- Foreclosures, immigration linked in report (5-13-2009)
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Beyond the Sun
Panelists at tonight’s town-hall meeting on how the foreclosure crisis affects minorities in the valley are handicapped by a lack of research on the topic.
According to its hosts, public radio stations KNPR 88.9-FM and KCEP 88.1-FM, the event is meant to address “how ethnic minorities have disproportionately been affected” by foreclosures in the region.
But panelists and others said they couldn’t point to any research that details that effect. They said the region needs more information on the issue. The Las Vegas Valley is, after all, ground zero for the crisis, topping the rest of the nation in monthly foreclosure rankings for most of the past two years.
Tonight’s event, they said, underscores how the valley and Nevada as a whole tend to be slow to study key issues.
“Las Vegas can spend millions on showing things off, on gaudiness ... but when it comes to important research, there’s none,” Keith Schwer, director of UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research, said when asked about the lack of in-depth, local studies on foreclosures.
Panelist Gail Burks, president of the Nevada Fair Housing Center, said part of the problem is a lack of funding and infrastructure for gathering information. Another obstacle is the sheer amount of resources needed to help people facing foreclosure, which leaves little time to stop and do research.
The little-publicized release last week of a Nevada Association of Realtors-commissioned survey of 300 people serves, ironically, to illustrate the need. Only one of the five panelists interviewed mentioned the survey to the Sun. The others, instead, pointed to different studies that show blacks and Hispanics received subprime loans in higher percentages than whites in the years leading up to the current crisis.
“If you peel back the onion, if a group gets disparate treatment in acquiring the loan, it is easy to make the assumption they would be disparately affected” by foreclosures, said Kenneth LoBene, state coordinator for the Housing and Urban Development Department and another of six panelists.
The Realtors association survey on foreclosures provides no support for that idea, however. It shows percentages of minorities that are smaller than the actual population.
The survey’s participants were chosen because of factors that made them likely to face foreclosure, said Joel Searby, a consultant with SGS, the firm the association hired to do the study. Of the 307 people surveyed, 7.8 percent were black, nearly the same as the state population, and 14.7 percent were Hispanic, considerably less than the state population of 25 percent.
Searby said the association commissioned the study because “there was a real void of information on those who had been through foreclosure, though there was a glut of data on mortgage information.” The survey asked participants about educational level, household income, loan type and other economic and social characteristics.
The information is meant to help Realtors identify homebuyers who are less likely to face foreclosure in the future, but “it is also good information for legislation and other public policy,” Searby said.
Burks said the federal government has data on subprime loans and foreclosures, but she allowed that no one in the Las Vegas Valley has crunched all the numbers in an easy-to-use way.
Local elected officials also spoke of the need for user-friendly information on the subject. Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, one of the panelists invited to tonight’s event, said she has been hearing for about a year that Hispanics in her district are disproportionately affected by foreclosures, in part because they got into loans they didn’t fully understand because of language barriers. Recently, however, she has heard that other, newer areas on the outskirts of the valley are being hit by foreclosures, affecting other demographic groups. But the commissioner said she has no way of knowing what’s true.
“I know what’s been said, but I haven’t seen any data,” she said.
Leticia Bravo, the state minority ombudsman and another panelist, said that about seven of the 10 calls she receives daily about mortgage modification scams are from Hispanics.
“But I can’t speak to the universe of foreclosures and how it affects minorities” in Nevada, Bravo said. “I’m not sure if there is any data on this.”
Bravo, who used to work in Chicago, said that in other states, “there is always a ton of data.”
Putting more information together could help “move forward and avoid this in the future,” she said.
Discussion: 24 comments so far…
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How can we ask everyone to forget race and all work together as American's when every day we try to show how someone is a victim?
We need to put a Hispanic Welcoming Center at Primm to assist all the newcomers from Cali. We can offer booklets in Spanish explaining the dangers of sub prime mortgages. We can also give them directions to the union halls, State employment offices, and welfare centers, as well as the locations of hospital emergency rooms. Plus we can provide them with a map to locate the best schools for their children. And a real estate office for them to find the best areas for their numerous offspring...Did I miss anything?
bdover - Don't forget the Star and Moon Valley nurseries where they can loiter and leer at our daughters. Don't bother with the DMV or smog stations...they don't use 'em. Oh, and show them where they can gongregate with their Mexican flags and demand the same rights as citizens. That should almost cover it.
I think we should look at some of these Realtor. They know what their client can and cannot afford.
is it just me, or is this article insulting that minorities are dumb?
nvapples, if they bark like a dog, chase their tail like a dog, eat dog food, isn't it ... a dog?
Who gives a damn about their ethnicity? We will not alleviate the housing crisis until those that cannot afford their homes are replaced by those that can afford their homes. No matter what color they are. Attempts to use political correctness to fix the problem will only delay the inevitable. It's a personal responsibility issue, not a race issue. Unless the article is insinuating that minorities are more prone to bad decision-making?
Everyone that lives here has the same chance to lose their home. I am a 'White' (Used as a reference to the article only) American with tons of skill and experience in many fields. I haven't worked for almost 6 mos now and my wife in five. I spent 25+ years in the regular work force as a paying contributor to my unemployment and taxes. I only recently in the last 10 years or so started working in a field where I would be a freelance and self employed stagehand. It is a right to work state after all and I am part of the system and a Union member of the Local 720. But a lot of my work depends upon getting and keeping my own jobs. Suddenly my work dried up due to economic concerns and poor state and US government systems management and I am forced to file for unemployment for the first time in my life. I get $157.00 a week and NO chance of receiving any other aid due to my tax bracket. I have no real "On the Books" recent experience to get another job and may be standing in front of Home Depot begging for landscaping work soon enough. I guess I should have spent more time using my money in unemployment accounts over the years if I had known it would be taken away and wasted.It doesn't matter who you are it is tough for everyone everywhere and to focus on ANY race is ignorant and stupid. BTW the 'Learing at our daughters comment' was one of the most racist things I have heard in a long time, how dare you! I can lear at a girl as good as anyone. I choose not to. Gary
alohaseven - I'm sure you CAN leer at a girl as good as anyone but choose not to. THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE!
Can someone tell me what race has to do with paying your mortgage?
The point the article makes, as I read it, is why do minorities pay more for loans than others, and a discussion of this conundrum to pursue fairness.
The PEW report shows that Hispanics, blacks and minorities in general entered subprime mortgages at higher rates than the rest of the population. Nationwide, for example, 27.6 percent of home loans to Hispanics in 2007 were high-priced and a third of loans to blacks were in the same category. Only 1 in 10 loans to whites were high-priced.
How 'bout a town hall meeting to discuss how white people have been disproportionately affected by forclosures?
That would be interesting to study, I suggest, the revelation would be most white people have been disproportionately affected by forclosures because of lost renters or their renters not paying rents; meaning, even though they received preferential loan rates the resesion still affected them.
Comment removed by staff.
I still don't know if I feel insulted that they think that minorities are dumb and should get a break, or if I should just say, "thanks, I'm glad that I get privileges for being dumb and irresponsible!"
I don't buy the excuse that minorities got worse loan rates because we all had the option to use an on-line loan company and they would never see your race.
It has nothing to do with intelligence, it was based on economics and the way in which business packaged and offered financial options to minorities using unfair practices, and without concerns for ethical marketing. These antipathetic companies erode Americans pursuit of happiness; they drape themselves in capitalism to garnish the respect of communities, all the while being no more than a parasite with a facade of concern.
Most minorities didn't use the proverbial so-called on-line loan company. Also, it was not said that only minorities where dealt high priced loans, it revealed that minorities where disproportionately funneled into them, visa-vie by means of disingenuous rating tools to prey on the unsuspecting consumers. Which by the way; is in no means a stretch of their poor performance in all areas of responsibility. A government review of their business strategies and tactics, as we all now know, were corrupt and unscrupulous.
Now, the focus is on the bail-out of our economy, and the correction of credit-card banking regulations that affect the broad spectrum of our society. The overhaul of the industries banking regulations is welcomed and over-due, but enough is enough, the money management industry is becoming an oligarchy, and to use taxpayers' money to facilitate it seems to me an issue of antitrust.
What a waste of time. There was no one there on the panel, that was quailfied to answer any questions from the pubic.
Simple fact is that minorities didnt create the housing situation we are currently in. Yes some realtors and banks (who have a lot more knowlege when it comes to buying a house) steered them to bad loans,but the majority of forclosures belong to whites. There have been many cases where minorities were shuffled into subprime loans when they had excellent credit. Thats not being dumb, thats being ignorant about unscrupulous banks and realtors.
Re article:
"The information is meant to help Realtors identify homebuyers who are less likely to face foreclosure in the future, but "it is also good information for legislation and other public policy," Searby said."
Why would the Realtors need to identify homebuyers less likely to face forclosure? That isn't their job, they don't loan the money... I have yet to meet a Realtor, that didn't require that you pre-qualified for a loan (plus need to know the amount) before they even begin to show properties..
strategies and tactics
One has to love the stupidity of Liberals. Clinton is the root cause of the financial mess we're in today you lunatic lefties.
President Bill Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which had prevented the coupling of investment banking and lending. To be exact, on November 12, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One of the effects of the repeal is it allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate.
Bottom line, Democrats wanted lenders to loan to people who wouldn't normally qualify for mortgages (Minorities) and we're paying the price for these idiots who purchased homes without the means to pay for the homes. Just another example of how the lunatic democrats will stop at nothing to screw America and sell us out to foreigners. Obama is no different; he is just as much as an idiot as the rest of the Democratic Party Buffoons.
Pigs get fat - Hogs get slaughtered and these people who are being foreclosed on were all Hogs. Put them in the street where they belong; they created their own destiny now live with it. They all signed the loan documents knowing damn good and well they couldn't afford the place in the first place, no mercy for them at all. Get a second job and a third job and pay your own damn debts and stop relying on us who pay our bills and live within our means, oh we work too!
We'll let's see what the Democrats do for them now, stimulus package two on the way, more freebies for their welfare voting pool they'll need in 2010 and 2012.
Cause and effect / the ultimate cause.
Looking at the big picture, you find that the so called sub-prime loans were not the ultimate cause of our world ecconomic melt-down, but only a link in the effects of the manifistation of Bush's energy policy.
Stop grabing at the crubms of what is left and raise your heads to see the whole enchilada.
Ponder this for a moment:
1. Stratigic Petrolium Reserve (SPR) Bush in his last four years of office steadly bought all the excess oil on the market with Tax Payers money driving the market up - Supply and Demand. Then dumpped it into the ground (caverns) which I still think are connected to the oil fields in TX, OK, LA, but at any rate, it is private industry that pumpes that oil out for profit (winfall). If not for Pellose and the House calling him a "Lame Duck" we would have seen $200.00 oil and $6.00 a gallon gas.
2. M1, M2, M3, stopped being published on Bush's watch (Theft at the Grandess level). This is Like the bank telling you they will no longer let you know how much money is in your account. In other words, how much are you worth, only the bank can tell you that and if they say you are worth 1 million, who can say otherwise. So goes the dollar, and no one can say how many dollars are truley out there.
3. Everybody, all loans, non/sub-prime or otherwise have faild, but mostly non-sub-prime loans have failed. Did you hear that; only 25% of credit defaults were sub-prime the rest were other than sub-prime loans.
4. Liquidity, the money flowing from person to person, hand to hand, cash flow; All this money is out side the USA, namely in the middle East, due largely to $4.00 a gallon of gas, $147.00 a barrel oil. Some GCC' where making 1 Billion dollars a day surpluse during that run up of oil in 2007-2008.
5. Bank failers were the result of no liquidity and then subsicently being taken-over by other banks with the support (TARP) of the US government, which, by the way, is still on-going.
I am not a hack and never will be as long as I have a sound mind.
If anyone has had any luck with any of these companies, could you please post it for the ones that cannot find one to work with you. We've almost lost once and just got a second chance that want last long so I need to get something done now, so if anyone knows the right number to call, i am sure a lot of people that hasn't found them would appreciate it but check out http://obamamortgage2009.blogspot.com or obamamortgage2009.blogspot.com