Charlene Crowell
Washington Informer
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Past articles by Charlene:
Financial Fairness at Risk With Proposed TD Bank-First Horizon Merger
Consumer advocates currently are urging bank regulators to thoroughly examine a proposed TD Bank merger, particularly in light of the lender's record with home loans and overdraft fees. → Read More
Like Black Families, HBCUs are Financially Shortchanged
Despite a two-year uptick in federal funds that delivered $6.5 billion to 101 HBCUs under the Biden administration, these institutions remain severely underfunded. → Read More
Record Inflation Shrinks Housing Affordability, Worsens Racial Wealth Gaps
If this nation really wants to address its affordable housing crisis, then it is time to give Black America a level playing field with access to affordable and sustainable mortgages. → Read More
Despite Years of Payments, Black Student Loan Balances Go Up, Not Down
Although Black America represents 12% of the nation's population, we hold 22% of all federal loan debt, affecting multiple generations → Read More
CFPB Sues TransUnion on Credit Reporting Violations
Although debt collection has been a longtime leading issue reported to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), during the COVID-19 pandemic, another issue emerged as the nation’s number one consumer concern: credit reporting. → Read More
COVID’s Effects Worsen America’s Racial Wealth Gap: Blacks Own 22 Cents for Every Dollar Held by Whites
As the global pandemic continues to take lives and infect multiple generations, virtually every dimension of life is challenged. And people with the fewest financial resources before COVID-19 are being challenged more than ever before. → Read More
A Blue-Collar Blueprint for the Nation’s Infrastructure
As the country continues to increase COVID-19 vaccinations, businesses and consumers alike still struggle with evolving versions of daily life. At the same time, there is little disagreement that sustained effort is needed for a return to stability – not only in public health, but in personal finance and the larger economy as well. → Read More
How Soon Will Biden’s American Jobs Plan Arrive to Help Housing?
With a highly-partisan Congress unable or unwilling to enact basic voting rights legislation, it's reasonable to wonder whether housing programs like the American Jobs Plan will attract bipartisan support. → Read More
Consumer Groundswell Calls for End to Bank-Supported Predatory Loans
In October, during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and its rippling economic downturns, a key federal financial regulator adopted a rule that blesses the “rent-a-bank” scheme where predatory lenders partner with banks to evade state interest rate limits. → Read More
A year of COVID-19 brought record consumer debt and collection complaints
70 million consumers contacted by at least one debt collector → Read More
Black America needs a ‘New Normal’: Equitable credit access to build wealth
Black America needs a ‘New Normal’: Equitable credit access to build wealth By Charlene Crowell Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed dual crises. Over 542,000 Americans lives were lost and continue to increase. At the same time, the rippling effects of a massive economic downturn has caused the nation to lose 9.5 million jobs - more losses than even those of the Great Recession,… → Read More
Consumer advocates push President Biden in his first 100 days
As President Joe Biden begins his term of office, the nation and much of the world are waiting and watching to see how his promises become policies and practices that → Read More
$900 Billion Federal Stimulus: What’s In it, What’s Not, What Remains
Although a new year has begun, many American consumers and small businesses continue to feel a financial hangover from the challenges of 2020. As the global pandemic reveals a still-soaring → Read More
A road map to relieving America’s $1.7 trillion student debt
Although the year 2020 has been dominated by continuing news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic’s rising death toll that has now claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 Americans, it is → Read More
Biden’s first 100-day challenge: Transitioning to a more inclusive economy
Policy group calls for fair housing, Black business assistance and more → Read More
The economic and social costs of black inequality
“As one of the leading executives on Wall Street, I am still seen first as a six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound Black man wherever I go. I could have been George Floyd.” – → Read More
COVID-19 aid remains stymied in Congress
As of mid-September, at least 197,000 people died from COVID-19 according to Johns Hopkins University. Beyond these fatalities, the number of COVID-related cases diagnoses reached 6.5 million people and continues → Read More
Police violence and segregated housing
The August 23 police shooting of an unarmed Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, triggered yet another round of community protests and national news coverage of a Black man. On August → Read More
Federal housing assistance falls short of meeting COVID-19 needs
As the nation’s double dose of health and economic crises continue, many consumers believe that federal assistance to make ends meet has virtually disappeared. While the $600 weekly federal supplement → Read More
$349B COVID-19 Small Business Program short-changes black businesses
A $349 billion program created to assist America’s small businesses was launched on April 3 to provide payroll, utilities, rent and more for eligible applicants screened by the U.S. Small → Read More