CHICAGO – As COVID-19 cases rise to levels worse than they were during the initial outbreak, State Senator Jacqueline Collins said the Illinois General Assembly’s decision to postpone legislative session is the right one, but lawmakers must not lose sight of efforts to fight systemic racism.

“We must treat this virus seriously,” said Collins (D-Chicago). “While the safe and responsible thing to do now is to postpone meeting, one of our top priorities when we do return should be legislation tackling racism in Illinois.”

Collins led a Senate committee hearing to highlight systemic racism in access to home lending during the fall, part of an ongoing effort by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus to identify measures that will put Illinois on a course for racial and economic equity. The Black Caucus has focused on reform in the areas of criminal justice and police accountability, education and workforce development, economic access, and health care and human services as its major policy goals.

Since September, the Senate has hosted subject matter hearings on these four policy pillars in an effort to provide legislators and the public with a deeper look into the Black experience in Illinois. The hearings, which are set to wrap up this week, have served as an opportunity to gather facts and recommendations to help the Black Caucus formulate a specific legislative agenda for when the General Assembly next convenes.

“When race is still the greatest predictor of whether someone gets a home loan, whether someone can cash a paycheck at a bank, whether they die by police or from the coronavirus, then we are forced to reckon with the sobering truth that our systems are racist,” Collins said. “I believe more Illinoisans than ever are grappling with this truth, and I urge them to make their voices heard to all their representatives in government as we await the next legislative session.”

The General Assembly is expected to convene prior to the spring session.

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Collins calls for more answers from banks as reports, studies highlight inequities

CHICAGO – Testimony from advocates, state government agencies, and banks themselves were all in agreement Thursday: Race remains the biggest predictor of whether somebody is approved for a home loan, and a major factor in how homes are evaluated in an appraisal process. The result, according to reports, studies, and testimony from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, is that Black homeowners in Illinois are simply not receiving loans at anywhere near the rate of homeowners in majority-white neighborhoods.

State Senator Jacqueline Collins, chair of the Illinois Senate Financial Institutions Committee, convened a joint hearing on the topic Thursday, bringing in the Senate Commerce and Economic Development and Senate Executive Committees to discuss the causes of this disparity, with testimony from IDFPR, representatives of the Illinois and Chicago housing authorities, Treasurer Michael Frerichs and representatives of various housing advocacy agencies. Some members of major banks submitted written testimony or attended the virtual hearing, but only JP Morgan Chase’s representative spoke.

“What we want to see is a lending market where race is not the largest predictor of approval for a home loan. We ultimately want to see a lending market where these disparities do not occur,” said Collins (D-Chicago). “We need an end to this cycle of disinvestment, which is at the very root of generational poverty here in Chicago and throughout the state and the country.”

The hearing highlighted findings by a recent report, a joint effort between WBEZ and the journalism nonprofit City Bureau, which highlighted a vast racial disparity in housing in the Chicago area. Among the starkest statistics: For every dollar lent to white neighborhoods in Chicago, just 12 cents make it to Black neighborhoods. The home loans lent just in Chicago’s majority-white Lincoln Park neighborhood total more, in dollars, than the combined amount of every home loan lent to every majority-Black neighborhood in the city combined.

In his testimony, IDFPR’s Acting Director of Banking, Chasse Rehwinkle, said Lincoln Park is not an outlier and that the situation arises from systemic issues that have occurred over decades.

Collins said the challenges of remedying the state of affairs lie partly in state government’s regulatory framework, but stressed also that the behavior of banks must be held to account.

“The solutions to how we achieve a fairer lending market are going to need to come from banking institutions themselves,” Collins said. “I appreciate the representatives of those institutions who have made time to participate today, but I do want to express disappointment that some have declined to do so.”

The hearing was part of an ongoing series organized by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus. The question of fairness in economic access is among the four pillars guiding the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus’ legislative agenda to eliminate systemic racism. The pillars include:

1. Criminal justice reform, violence reduction and police accountability
2. Education and workforce development
3. Economic access, equity and opportunity
4. Health care and human services

CHICAGO – Speaking ahead of a joint hearing of several Illinois Senate economic committees Friday, State Senator Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago) called out structural racism in banking and said urgent change is needed to undo multi-generational barriers that now see Black families in Chicago less likely to own homes than they were before the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968.

“This is what systemic racism looks like and is reminiscent of the notorious era of redlining, the racially discriminatory policy that blocked Blacks from all legitimate means of obtaining a mortgage and opened the door for their exploitation and abuse by the housing, banking and mortgage industry,” said Collins, who chairs the Senate Financial Institutions Committee.

The Senate Financial Institutions, Commerce and Economic Development, Executive, and Local Government Committees comprised the joint hearing Thursday. The subject matter focused on the vast disparity in access to banking services between white and Black Illinoisans. The joint hearing is part of an ongoing series organized by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, with other hearings focusing on criminal justice, education and health care as part of the caucus’ efforts to build a specific legislative agenda leading into the upcoming fall session in Springfield.

Collins cited recent reporting by WBEZ that showed banks in Chicago lend just $0.12 to Black neighborhoods for every dollar they spend in white neighborhoods. For some lenders, that disparity is even more jaw-dropping: JP Morgan Chase, for instance, gave out 41 times the amount of money in home loans to white neighborhoods that it did to Black neighborhoods, according to the report.

“As the Kerner report stated more than 52 years ago, these embedded forms of racial discrimination were created by white institutions, are maintained by white institutions and are condoned by white society,” Collins said. “Now is the time for transparency, equity, accountability and transformational change.”

You can read Senator Collins full remarks below:

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