Failure of CRA law caused meltdown
A house is marked with a foreclosure sign. Credit: AP
It wasn't the Community Reinvestment Act that caused the recession, it was the failure of CRA that caused many of our problems ["Seeds of the Great Recession," Letters, June 10]. Go into neighborhoods like Laurelton or Bushwick and look for banks. Not many to be found. There must be money there though, as Bushwick has plenty of check-cashing places.
Contrast that to Little Neck, where I live. There are six Chase branches alone within 2.5 miles of me. Where do you go for a mortgage when there are no banks and you don't have a relationship with one? You go to mortgage brokers who only get paid if the loan closes. Some brokers "embellished" income to get the loan closed so they could get paid.
Perhaps if the CRA were fully implemented and more banks were present in all neighborhoods, some of the meltdown could have been avoided. Let's get away from the subtle racism here and place the blame where it belongs, on the profit-mad lenders and Wall Street crowd.
Tony Smolenski, Little Neck
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