Fast Cash, Less Filling: Refund Anticipation Loans in North Carolina

This paper reveals the use of refund anticipation loans, also known as RALs, from 2004 to 2006 in North Carolina. It highlights zip codes with the highest concentration of RAL use. It places a connection between the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and demand for RALs. The inference is that this successful federal anti-poverty program is undermined by tax preparation services seeking to capitalize on the financial problems of low-income North Carolinians. Four maps are included at the end of the paper to reveal the geography of RAL use in the state

Fast Cash, Less Refund

This paper presents findings on the use of refund anticipation loans in North Carolina in 2007. Refund anticipation loans are high-cost, short-term loans made to tax filers who are owed a refund on their federal taxes. Calculations of APRs for these loans (RALs) can run above 150 percent on an annualized basis. The loans are used by people who are cash-strapped. Loans cost approximately $100, but they allow filers to get their taxes done without paying for their tax prep fees until their refund arrives. The transaction features make this an appealing product to poor working families. Accordingly, their use is highest in areas with high concentrations of poor working families. Our report uses data from the Internal Revenue Service. We focus on North Carolina. The quantitative research is supplemented with a market analysis of these loans. We note that the banks that provide a line of credit to these banks are suddenly constrained. Regulators have intervened to limit these loans. Their concerns include the safety and soundness of the deposits, as well as the inability of the bank partners to document that tax preparers are trained and in compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Lending Act, and the Truth-In-Lending Act. We find that RALs are disproportionately utilized by tax filers in low-income and minority communities. We note that most of these filers qualify for a refund because they get the Earned Income Tax Credit. We compare the use of a RAL with IRA contributions. The report is complemented by GIS mapping

Empty Houses and Broken Dreams: An Analysis of the Impact of Foreclosures in Durham's Neighborhoods

This paper describes the scope of foreclosures in one North Carolina county (Durham). It breaks down the impact on neighborhoods, on different racial groups, and on older people. The study uses data on foreclosure starts for the first 10 months of 2007 in Durham County. Records of foreclosure events (which include not only foreclosures but also bank owned properties as well as notice of defaults registered at the county courthouse) come from RealtyTrac. The data is integrated with voting data to show the race and age of voters living in the households were foreclosures took place. Because of limitations to data, the paper cannot assert the specific relationship between borrower race and loan performance. The report includes maps, photographs, and interviews with local residents. It finishes with a set of policy options that leaders at municipal, state, and federal levels of government can consider to address the foreclosure issue. This paper was introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly in Feb. 2008

Paying More for the American Dream: A Multi-State Analysis of Higher-Cost Home Purchase Lending

This report demonstrates that African-American and Latino borrowers are paying more than their white counterparts for home purchase loans in six geographic areas: Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Rochester. This review of federal lending data shows dramatic disparities. For example, in New York, African-American borrowers were five times more likely to receive higher-cost home purchase loans than were white borrowers

Exploring Myths about Manufactured Housing: The Truth(s) behind One of America’s Least Understood Financial Markets

With the subprime mortgage crisis and the associated fall in housing values, it is more important than ever for affordable housing advocates to understand and educate the public about available low-cost housing options. Adam Rust argues that manufactured housing may be an avenue to wealth building even in this climate, but only if the truths are separated from the more familiar half-truths surrounding this housing choice. Data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act provides a snapshot of manufactured housing’s potential and pitfalls in different regions of the country under various financing scenarios

Paying More for the American Dream - The Subprime Shakeout and Its Impact on Lower-Income and Minority Communities

A joint report by: California Reinvestment Coalition, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, Empire Justice Center, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, Ohio Fair Lending Coalition, and Woodstock Institut

Impact of the lateral blast on the spatial pattern and grain size characteristics of the 18 May 1980 Mount St. Helens fallout deposit

International audienceThe 18 May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens started with a lateral blast that fed a pyroclastic surge, which then uplifted to form a co-blast plume. Thirty minutes later, Plinian activity started at the vent and fluctuated in intensity for ~9 h. The resulting fallout deposit, documented to > 600 km from vent, presents some striking features: (1) displacement of the overall deposit to the north of the vent, (2) a secondary thickness and mass maximum at ~300 km from vent, (3) a total grain size distribution dominated by fine ash (62 wt % of the deposit < 63 μm), and (4) individual grain size distributions that vary dramatically in the crosswind direction from strongly bimodal in the south to skewed unimodal in the north. Results from a new deconvolution of the individual grain size distributions show that they are a combination of a coarse subpopulation that decreases in size with distance from vent and a constant fine subpopulation with a mean of ∼15 μm. Relative proportions of each subpopulation vary asymmetrically in the crosswind directions, with the fine subpopulation preponderant toward the north and the coarse one dominating the south of the deposit, both reach their absolute maxima in mass on the deposit axis. Componentry analyses of selected samples show that blast-derived material is greatly enriched toward the north of the deposit. These results indicate that the co-blast plume dispersed fine-grained material over great distances and dominated the fine subpopulation. Comparison with reanalysis data of atmospheric wind fields and satellite images of the spreading ash cloud suggests contrasting ash transport and depositional processes for the (early) co-blast plume and the (later) vent-derived Plinian plumes. The co-blast plume is displaced to the north; it had a high overshoot height, and eastward dispersion via strong winds low in the stratosphere (~10-15 km). The Plinian plumes were lower and dispersed most of the material to the southeast as the direction of high-velocity winds shifted just before the late climactic Plinian eruptive phase. Fine ash (fine subpopulation) was deposited continuously throughout the deposit, with an increase of sedimentation rate ~300 km from the vent where there is a secondary maximum in the deposit mass and thickness. Fine ash probably settled by a combination of enhanced sedimentation mechanisms, including not only aggregation but also gravitational convective instabilities of cloud base, hydrometeor formation and destruction, and entrainment of small particles by larger ones. Finally, we show that half of the deposit (by mass) in the medial area was deposited by the co-blast plume, and that a significant proportion of the Mount St. Helens fallout deposit is nonjuvenile, which has implications for the magmatic budget of this eruption

Paying More for the American Dream III: Promoting Responsible Lending to Lower-Income Communities and Communities of Color

This report analyzes 2007 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and finds that, in low- and moderate-income communities, depositories with CRA obligations originate a far smaller share of higher-cost loans than lenders not subject to CRA. It also finds that lenders covered by CRA are much less likely to make higher-cost loans in communities of color than lenders not covered by CRA

Paying More for the American Dream: A Multi City HMDA Analysis

An analysis of 2005 federal mortgage lending data shows that African American and Latino borrowers remain much more likely to pay more for their home purchase loans than white borrowers.This report examines the cost of borrowing in six metropolitan areas in the United States. These areas include large urban areas -- New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston, -- as well as the smaller urban areas of Charlotte, NC and Rochester, NY. This study confirms that large disparities remain in the pricing of home purchase loans