The Miami Valley Fair Housing Center is part of a $53 million dollar settlement with mortgage lender Fannie Mae.
Although the lawsuit against Fannie Mae was filed in 2016, it began soon after the 2008 housing market collapse. That’s when fair housing centers around the country began looking at how the mortgage lender treated foreclosed properties in communities of color.
They allege Fannie Mae maintained and marketed its foreclosed homes in predominantly white neighborhoods, but allowed similar homes in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods to fall into disrepair. The Center found differential treatment made it harder for those communities to recover from the 2008 financial crisis.
The National Fair Housing Alliance and 20 support organizations took documentation of the disparate treatment back to the lenders involved.
Jim McCarthy, with the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center says some lenders were quick to respond and correct course. That was not the case with the mortgage giant.
“We ended up bringing the lawsuit against Fannie Mae because we felt like they did not do enough in response to what we had shown them," he said. "And, we felt that they had significant enough control of a number of properties that they needed to do more.”
McCarthy says some of the $53 million from the Fannie Mae settlement will be used in cities like Columbus, Dayton and Toledo for down-payment assistance, access to credit and property rehabilitation.
The National Fair Housing Alliance and its supporting organizations have lawsuits pending against Deutsche Bank and Bank of America.
