The National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program, for example, has cured the loans of 55% of its clients within 12 months after their loans had entered foreclosure, compared to only 38% of those who did not receive such counseling. Indeed, housing counseling is particularly important to minority communities who otherwise face indelible barriers to homeownership, including language barriers, lack of traditional credit histories, the threat of ubiquitous predatory lenders, and lack of thorough and clear information on the buying and proper financing of a home. Without such counseling, minority communities will be unable to achieve sustainable homeownership, and their accumulation of wealth and economic progress will be substantially curtailed.

I applaud Yamila for assertively standing up to these highly insensitive and thoughtless Congressional actions, which are promulgated on the basis that they are looking after the welfare of future generations of Americans. But how can we do that, when we seriously jeopardize this current generation of Americans on whose economic prosperity and advancement all Americans in the future will depend upon?

As a Mexican with dark skin, and now a Mexican-American (with even more noticeable dark skin), and living in this country for 30+ years, I have my share of discrimination stories. It’s too bad we don’t have 50+ museums around the world that show, educate, and demonstrate discrimination, and humiliation against my people. as one isolated example; the recently shot in the head 14 yr. old kid (or equivalent) shot by a brainless un-educated (typical) EEUU border patrol police across the border from (was it?) Ciudad Juarez, and only because the kid was threatening them by throwing rocks… oh my…! what a crime…!!! Of course, the story vanished from the news from one day to the other… I’m sure if the kid happened to be Jewish, his story and picture would be added to one of their museums… anyway, i’m getting off track…

I wish education (as opposed to consumption propelled by brain washing techniques) could be made more affordable for all the people living in this country. Things would be so much different…!

Last but not least, with all due respect I’ve had it with Jewish people continue talking about how much and how bad and for how long they’ve been discriminated… too bad I don’t see any Palestinian names in this Blog, I’ll send them Mr. Zimmerman’s comments just to have a laugh. We are not living in the 40’s any more… last time I checked the calendar stated 2010… I’d love for them to walk TODAY in the shoes of someone with dark skin living in this country… specially walk in the shoes of those with dark skins living in AZ.

And one more time, yes Mr. Zimmerman, use the spell feature on your browser before you submit, people will have a bit more respect for what you have to say. I’d love to see a picture of your Argentinian wife.

The government clearly failed to provide meaningful leadership in directing mortgage-ready buyers into obtaining affordable and sustainable loans. In addition, many lenders also neglected to make prospective buyers aware of the various affordable loan products that have been available for years through local, state, and federal government housing agencies.

We have known for a long time that loans designed to be affordable and sustainable over time, and take into account borrowers’ ability to repay, perform well. On the other hand, the toxic and defective loans made over the past several years were costly, had minimum regard for borrowers’ ability to repay, and performed dismally.

As Mr. Becerra points out, it has been well-documented that loans that are well underwritten and affordable manage risks properly through pre-purchase counseling and down payment assistance to qualified first-time home buyers. Such loans effectively lower the risk to both borrowers and lenders – helping to achieve comparatively low-default rates and opening the doors to sustainable homeownership for an increasing number of American families.