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Fresh off actions at a Citigroup corporate office, the National Pork Producer's Council's offices, and at the offices of the American Association of Motor Vehicles Administrators, over 300 National People's Action leaders crammed into a Senate chamber to layout the neighborhood agenda on housing and banking issues for members of Congress.

Attended by Senate Housing and Banking Committee staff and members of the media, the tightly run briefing brought the "inside the beltway" senate staffers up to speed on what neighborhood groups want to see happen on affordable housing, banking, predatory lending, and Federal Housing Administration programs.

Here are the highlights of the issues discussed at the briefing:

Federal Housing Administration
NPA's work with former FHA William Apgar to create Credit Watch, FHA's only systematic lender monitoring program, paid off. So far, over 60 high default lenders have been suspended from doing business with FHA because of Credit Watch. NPA received word from new HUD Secretary Mel Martinez that he will make it a priority to make Credit Watch even more effective.

NPA has also worked with FHA to develop the Homebuyer Protection Plan, a comprehensive reform of FHA's appraisal process that has already begun to reduce appraiser fraud and abuse of FHA's single-family insurance program and has aided in homebuyer awareness.

During the first full year that all of these programs were implemented, FHA foreclosures were reduced for the first time since 1995-decreasing by 5,276, from 78,890 in 1999 to 73,614 in 2000. This is still too many, but NPA can see that its work is paying off.

National Housing Trust Fund
The nation is in the throes of an affordable housing crisis. What is needed now is an ambitious, aggressive affordable housing program on the same scale as the housing programs of the past.

NPA supports the National Housing Trust Fund legislation sponsored by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). The bill not only addresses affordable housing shortages but also offers a comprehensive solution. The new program is flexible, both in its targeting and application, and will be broad enough to serve the poorest of the poor, (those at 30% of median-income), as well as adaptive enough to serve the working poor, the population with the least Federal support (those at 80% of median). Uses for the fund will be determined by states and localities to fit the local needs.

The legislation, if passed, will harness the savings from the FHA insurance fund that resulted from both a ten-year housing boom, as well as from the sweeping reforms NPA won from the FHA in the last few years.

Predatory Lending
At the NPA conference a coalition of groups formed a working relationship with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to encourage investigation and prosecution of predatory lenders in seven cities where NPA groups are organizing on the issue. NPA will continue to press Citigroup to lead by example and reform its current discriminatory and predatory lending policies.

NPA also urged the Federal Reserve Board to strengthen the proposed changes to the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA), specifically by including credit insurance and prepayment penalties in the definition of points and fees. NPA has called on the Federal Reserve Board to strengthen the proposed changes to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, specifically by requiring disclosure of credit score, fees, and interest rate.

Community Reinvestment Act
Over the course of the last year, NPA has sponsored community hearings with all four banking regulators in seven cities across the country: Cleveland, Des Moines, Syracuse, Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and the Bronx.

At each of these hearings, NPA neighborhood groups have focused on five specific proposals to be included in the 2002 rewriting of community reinvestment regulations.

The regulatory agencies have committed to addressing NPA's issues in their upcoming Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that should go out for comment in June or July. NPA is now seeking support from all members of Congress in the form of phone calls and comment letters to the banking regulators in support of its regulatory proposals.

The groups involved in the hearing were:
· Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Coalition, Pittsburgh, PA
· Communities United for Action, Cincinnati, OH
· Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Bronx NY
· Syracuse United Neighbor, Syracuse, NY
· Central Illinois Organizing Project, Bloomington, IL
· Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Chicago, IL
· South Austin Coalition Community Council, Chicago, IL
· Blocks Together, Chicago, IL
· Nobel Neighbors, Chicago, IL
· Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
· East Side Organizing Project, Cleveland, OH