Patricia Marroquin–HispanicBusiness.com

A new report states it in black and white: Color is lacking on the boards of directors of the 46 largest independent foundations in the United States.

The Greenlining Institute has found that although a quarter of all board directors of the 46 foundations are African-American, Hispanic or Asian-American, 28 percent of the foundations examined do not have a single person of color on their boards. Read the rest of this entry »

NYtimes.com
By MATT RICHTEL

John Cobb, 59, a former commercial fisherman who is disabled with cirrhosis of the liver and emphysema, lives in a studio apartment in Greensboro, N.C., on a fixed monthly income of $674. He has been hoping to receive more government assistance, and in February, he did. Read the rest of this entry »

The number during the four months that ended March 31 are more than double the amount required in the period under an agreement between the bank and states including California.

L.A. Times
By E. Scott Reckard

Bank of America Corp. says it offered to modify more than 100,000 home loans in a four-month period, more than double the number required under its settlement of accusations of predatory lending that California and other states brought against Countrywide Financial Corp. Read the rest of this entry »

American Banker  |  Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By Orson Aguilar and J. Alfred Smith Jr.

A major transformation in banking is revolutionizing America’s approach to financial literacy.

Some financial institutions, to their credit, such as Citigroup, have expended hundreds of millions of dollars each over the last generation in promoting traditional approaches to financial literacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is urging banks that have received federal bailout money to continue to support charities and lend to moderate- and low-income neighborhoods. Read the rest of this entry »

Contacts:

Greenlining Signs on to Constitutional Convention Summit in Sacramento on February 24th

Berkeley, CA - The Greenlining Institute, a statewide multi-ethnic public policy organization, has long urged improvement to the state’s budget process.  Structural problems like the two-thirds rule, Proposition 13, and the consistent misuse of our initiative system has led to partisan bickering and pushed our state to the brink year after year. Read the rest of this entry »

Contacts:

Greenlining Applauds Obama’s Homeownership Proposals

Berkeley, CA - Since 2004, Greenlining has been highly critical of federal banking regulator responses to excessive predatory lending.  And since 2006, it has been highly critical of the federal government’s failure to forthrightly and aggressively address the problem.

Today, Greenlining in a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and FDIC Chair Bair, applauded the Obama $75 billion dollar home stabilization program announced in Phoenix, Arizona.  Greenlining also urged suggestions that would further assist low/moderate income homeowners and renters (letter attached.)  Also attached is Greenlining’s letter, prior to the announcement, to the Secretary of the Treasury urging a bold program that would avoid the problems that have continually confronted the Japanese government over the last fifteen years during its deep and growing recession. Read the rest of this entry »

The New York  Times
Cyrus Sanati

Pfizer’s $68 billion acquisition of rival pharmaceutical maker Wyeth is drawing criticism over the $22.5 billion in loans Pfizer received from major Wall Street banks to help close the deal.

The Greenlining Institute, a California-based public policy group, says it has filed an action with the antitrust division of the Department of Justice in which it questioned whether the bank consortium that provided the loans was misusing the billions of dollars they received under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Read the rest of this entry »

By Aurelio Rojas
Sacbee.com

Under pressure from minority members of the California Legislature, 10 of the state’s largest foundations will give an additional $30 million over the next three years to nonprofits in communities of color. Read the rest of this entry »

TheNation.com
By Ben Ehrenreich

“This is a crowd that won’t scatter,” James Steele wrote in the pages of The Nation some seventy-five years ago. Early one morning in July 1933, the police had evicted John Sparanga and his family from a home on Cleveland’s east side. Sparanga had lost his job and fallen behind on mortgage payments. The bank had foreclosed. A grassroots “home defense” organization, which had managed to forestall the eviction on three occasions, put out the call, and 10,000 people–mainly working-class immigrants from Southern and Central Europe–soon gathered, withstanding wave after wave of police tear gas, clubbings and bullets, “vowing not to leave until John Sparanga [was] back in his home.” Read the rest of this entry »