Predatory Lending Hits the Hispanic Community

“Consumer Advocate Harj Gill was recently quoted as saying that “Truth and Justice are the American Way,” and he added “But if you’re a Latino looking for a mortgage, you can forget about these values because they don’t apply to you.”

Gill’s office has developed an outreach program that has been investigating predatory lending practices in the nation’s minority groups. The main focus is the Hispanic Community,which is the largest minority group at this point and it also seems is also the target of predatory lending practices. He also said “If you have an iota of conscience, what we found would make you wretch.”

The Ad Council launched various campaigns focusing on predatory lending but these advertisements involved elderly African Americans but they may have to launch a campaign including the Hispanic Community because according to Consumer Advocate Harj Gill the trend is growing as the Hispanic population grows.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau , they project that the Hispanic community will comprise 15.5% of the population by 2010, making it a commercially attractive emerging market for many business sectors. However when it comes to finance, mainstream lenders have been slow to cater to the needs of Latino borrowers. In their place smaller, more aggressive, often unscrupulous, mortgage lenders have stepped in to fill the void from coast to coast.

According to a study by the National Council of La Raza, an astronomical 80% of Latinos use commission-based mortgage brokers to access loans and are two times more likely than whites to be financed into expensive sub-prime mortgages.

The study also showed that Hispanics continue to suffer financially for a disproportionate length of time because they are far less likely to refinance compared to other homeowners. Furthermore, justice is often denied them because cultural and language barriers make it virtually impossible for them to apply for recourse through formal channels that are often bogged down with bureaucratic complexity and confusion.

Consumer Advocate Gill’s outreach solution’s first step is to appoint Hispanic Community Liaisons to assist in Educating, Empowering and Protecting Latino homebuyers, home loan borrowers and homeowners. Their most recent appointment was Salvador Ortiz Sandoval who was appointed as the Liaison for the West Coast, it seems as though Gill plans to appoint other liasons in key parts of the country to help combat this trend.
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