Law Commons^™

Advancing The Cra—Using The Cra's Strategic Plan Option To Promote Community Inclusion: The Cra And Community Inclusion, Cassandra Jones Havard

All Faculty Scholarship

Banks, banking regulators, and community organizations have spent nearly thirty years interpreting and re-interpreting the simple but ambiguous mandate of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The statute imposes an affirmative duty requiring "regulated financial institutions to have continuing... obligations to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered." The CRA was met with much resistance and lax enforcement for almost a decade. Active protest from community groups, a more defined CRA exam, and innovative, profitable lending strategies, have resulted in a dramatic increase in community reinvestment dollar commitments and in loans to low- and …