Boston Council Hears Call to Revive Banking Commission, Expand Fair Housing Testing

BOSTON -- March 23, 2023, Boston City Council hears sweeping testimony on racial bias in mortgage lending and home appraisals. Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune chaired the hearing under Docket 0164, convening six outside experts and two city administration officials to examine what panelists called persistent, documented discrimination against Black and Latino homebuyers. Tom Callahan of the Partnership for Financial Equity disclosed that the average income of a Boston home-purchase borrower in 2021 was $254,100, "the highest on record", against an average property value of $914,000, while Black borrowers using banks averaged $127,000 in income. Hilary Pizer of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance announced the One Plus Boston mortgage program will double its interest rate discount to 2.3 percentage points below market. Robert Terrell, the city's new director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equity, urged the council to revive the dormant Municipal Banking and Community Reinvestment Commission, convert linked deposit pledges into binding requirements, and secure an in-house testing program and general counsel for the Fair Housing Commission, calling 54 percent of Boston mortgages now going through lenders with no local Community Reinvestment Act obligations "a trend that is going to be hard to reverse."