At the National Housing Conference this morning, the National Fair Housing Alliance, expressed significant concern that the finalization of Washington's capital regulation plan will negatively impact consumers. 

• Lisa Rice, President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance, lost sleep over the proposal: "Yeah, I think one of the challenges and we've since learned this when the capital rule first came out, the proposal came out. Everybody was in panic mode and people you know, we're making phone calls. I don't know if I got to bed before one o'clock for the two weeks after that proposal came out, everybody was in panic mode."
• She states that the proposal was developed in a silo, without considering how this will really impact consumers: "And one of the things that we have found out is that unfortunately, you know, like, like many large institutions, the federal regulators were working on Basel and the capital rules, sort of in a silo, and not really talking across the other divisions within the regulatory agencies to better understand how some of those proposals would translate on the ground."
• The rule could reverse good faith efforts to make credit more accessible to underserved communities: "The proposed capital rule for example, I could see it literally squashing any efforts by lenders to stand up special purpose credit programs. So I am hoping that the federal regulators will take a deep look at that and really revamp the capital rules similar to what they did with the Community Reinvestment Act Rule."

The National Fair Housing Alliance and numerous other community advocacy groups have continuously raised concerns about how stricter capital regulations will impact consumers, particularly in underserved communities. No one stands to lose more than hardworking Americans, who are already facing significant economic challenges.