From Foreclosure to Fair Lending ─ Advocacy, Organizing, Occupy, and the Pursuit of Equitable Credit

David Berenbaum serves as the chief program officer of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). He is a responsible for implementing NCRC’s policy, private enforcement, National Neighbors and national housing counseling intermediary initiatives, as well as related fraud, fair lending, and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing training programs. He has testified before the US Congress many times on a wide range of issues and has appeared as an expert on numerous national news magazine shows?including Dateline NBC, 48 Hours, The CBS Evening News, CNBC, CNN, and others. Berenbaum previously served as the executive director of Long Island Housing Services in New York and the Equal Rights Center in Washington.

Janis Bowdler is the director for the Wealth-Building Policy Project at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. In this role, she conducts policy and legislative analysis, research, and advocacy on issues that promote the financial security and advancement of Latino families through asset ownership and wealth creation. Bowdler has authored a number of publications on Hispanic home ownership and abusive mortgage lending practices, among others, and regularly serves as an expert witness before the US Congress and federal regulators on issues regarding wealth-building challenges facing the Latino community.

Michael D. Calhoun is president of the Center for Responsible Lending, which is the policy affiliate of Self-Help, the nation’s largest community development lender that has provided over $6.4 billion in financing for first time homeowner loans and small business loans. The Center for Responsible Lending is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and policy institute focusing on consumer lending issues. He has authored numerous papers on the subject and has testified before the US Congress and many state legislatures. He is a former member and chair of the Federal Reserve Consumer Advisory Committee.

James H. Carr is the chief business officer for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), an executive committee member of Americans for Financial Reform, and a blogger for the Roosevelt Institute’s New Deal 2.0 initiative. Prior to his appointment to NCRC, he was senior vice president for financial innovation, planning, and research for the Fannie Mae Foundation, assistant director for Tax Policy with the US Senate Budget Committee, and research associate at the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. Carr was an advisor to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Urban Affairs Project Group in Paris, France, and has consulted internationally on financial modernization, housing finance, and economic development in China, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, South Africa, and Ghana.

Peter Dreier is the E. P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. He formerly served as director of housing for the Boston Redevelopment Authority and senior policy advisor to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. In 1993, the Clinton administration appointed him to the advisory board of the Resolution Trust Corp., the savings-and-loan clean-up agency. Among his (coauthored) books are The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (2012), The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City (2006), and Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century (2001).

Thomas P. Fitzgibbon, Jr. is the managing director and chief operations officer for Talmer Bank and Trust, a $2.8 billion privately held community bank with sixty offices in Southern Wisconsin and Eastern Michigan. He was the executive vice president of the $10 billion Chicago-based MB Financial Bank until 2010. He also served as the pres