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Miami Herald
10-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
The Justice Department wants to end an agreement it reached with a Pa. bank it accused of redlining in Philly
Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice accused a Pennsylvania bank of redlining - avoiding lending in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia. ESSA Bank & Trust, based in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, denied the accusations but entered into a settlement agreement with the federal government in which the bank had to give more than $2.9 million in loan subsidies to homebuyers in formerly redlined communities. The bank also agreed to devote resources to soliciting mortgage applications from Philadelphia residents in neighborhoods it was accused of ignoring, to include Philadelphians in its program for low- and moderate-income homebuyers, to work with local groups to provide homebuyer education, and to target historically excluded neighborhoods with its advertising. On Friday, the Justice Department asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to allow it to end the five-year agreement three years early. The court filing is in line with other recent Justice Department moves across the country to end similar fair-housing and antidiscrimination settlement agreements. Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said in a statement that by taking these actions, "this administration is empowering bad actors and leaving millions of our nation's most vulnerable unprotected and exposed." The Justice Department said in its motion Friday that ESSA Bank "has demonstrated a commitment to remediation," including disbursing required loan subsidies, and is "substantially in compliance" with other terms of the court order. The bank did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The department noted that its motion was "unopposed." But on Monday, the National Fair Housing Alliance and local civil rights organizations filed a motion asking to join the case and opposing cutting short the legal agreement. "This effort would strip West and Southwest Philadelphia communities of the hard-won protections they were promised just two years ago," Rachel Wentworth, executive director of the nonprofit Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. "For decades, banks of all kinds have used redlining to deny neighborhoods of color access to wealth and opportunity, and ending this consent order sends a devastating message to these communities." The Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center and the law firm Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC, which has offices in Philadelphia and Marlton, are representing the Housing Equality Center, the National Fair Housing Alliance, and POWER Interfaith, the Pennsylvania faith-based community organizing network, as they oppose the Justice Department's motion to end the agreement. Eli Segal of Stapleton Segal Cochran said in a statement that "the rule of law demands more here than vague assurances of 'substantial compliance.' It demands court-ordered action." Olivia Mania, attorney and Penn Carey Law Catalyst Fellow at the Public Interest Law Center, said in an interview that "communities in and around Philadelphia deserve access to a lending market that's free from discrimination." "This isn't just about one bank," Mania said in a statement. "It's about whether the federal government will honor its role in dismantling structural racism in the housing market - or walk away when the cameras are off. The parties should be held to the terms of the consent order to ensure real, lasting change." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Chicago Tribune
09-06-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Errol Samuelson: I work at Zillow and I know the harms of private listing networks
It is common knowledge that more competition maximizes sales price. But there are a few real estate brokerages insisting in ever-louder voices that competition doesn't matter, because if enough people fall for that idea, it gives them cover to double dip on commissions and attract more clients. We must 'preserve seller choice,' they argue. And they talk up as 'innovative' a marketing strategy that puts a broker's interests ahead of their clients'. To be clear, sellers and their agents have the choices they need to market their homes, whether their goal is to maximize price or privacy, or something in between. They can sell their home completely privately off the Multiple Listing Service and third-party websites. They can make it available only to other agents in the market to share with their buyers one-on-one. They can keep the address or photos from being shown online. They can even list it on the MLS but keep the listing off the internet entirely. None of that is changing, nor should it. Sellers should retain full control over how and where they market their homes. So what choice are these handful of outspoken brokerages trying to preserve? Their own. They are choosing to make more money by persuading sellers that limiting which and how many buyers can see their home is somehow good. They are engineering private marketplaces that benefit themselves while actively harming buyers and sellers, all the while framing the practice as pro-consumer. That's especially bold when you consider that every consumer advocacy group that has weighed in on the issue — including the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Consumer Policy Center, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals the National Association of Real Estate Brokers and Consumer Advocates in Real Estate — disagrees with them. Here's the reality: Home sellers aren't bursting through brokerage doors begging for a multitiered private marketing strategy. They're asking for help and representation, and going along with what's being pitched to them because they trust their agent. These brokerages use catchy marketing speak as they pitch sellers on their plans, but it all boils down to: 'Give us a few weeks to see if we can find a buyer we're already working with so we can get both commissions and use your listing to attract more clients. Odds are, it'll take longer and you'll probably lose some money, but if it doesn't work we'll put it on the MLS and sell it the way we should have all along.' If they're being forthright, they'd ask, 'Would you like 1,000 buyers or 50,000 buyers to know about the home you're trying to sell?' The result, of course, is that sellers waste time. And for sellers unfortunate enough to find a buyer within the private network, it almost always comes at a cost of thousands of dollars. Sometimes much, much more. And they rarely ever know. It's too bad these brokerages are choosing this path. Study after study after study — and common sense — tell us that marketing only to a few buyers who happen to be working with the same brokerage isn't how a seller makes the most money. It's how the brokerage makes the most money. Just last week in these pages, one Chicagoland brokerage ignored mountains of research and instead cited a 'study' by Midwest Real Estate Data showing privately listed homes sold for more money and sold faster. A quick glance shows that it wasn't a study, but a chart in an MRED white paper detailing the harms of private listing networks. They left out the part of the same white paper that says: 'Limiting the exposure of a listing to a subset of the market can reduce its ultimate selling price, which brings the ability of the listing agent to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to their seller into question.' And they also didn't share the part that says: 'Legal and ethical issues regarding off-MLS listings include the ability of agents to fulfill their fiduciary duties to clients, fair housing discrimination concerns, and proper disclosure of marketing practices to clients.' The harms of private listing networks proliferating are clear: Remember before Zillow, Redfin and other similar sites when you didn't know what houses were for sale until your agent showed you the listing in a big book in their office, or drove you around? When you couldn't do your own vetting and deep diving and comparing? That's the world these brokerages are hoping to revert to — one in which they control the information and buyers and sellers are at their mercy. And they're trying to somehow sell it as innovation. Errol Samuelson is chief industry development officer at Zillow.
Epoch Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Judge Declines to Block Portions of Trump's DEI Executive Orders
A federal judge on Friday declined to block enforcement of provisions in President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), in response to a lawsuit filed by pro-LGBT organizations. In a 58-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly 'The motion before the Court is not about whether DEI policies, however defined in a given context, are good public policy. Nor is it about whether specific DEI initiatives comply with antidiscrimination law,' Kelly wrote in his order. 'Instead, it is about whether Plaintiffs have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the executive orders at issue.' The judge said that the plaintiffs—National Urban League, National Fair Housing Alliance, and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago—are unlikely 'to prevail on the merits' and that the 'court will deny the motion.' They've also failed to 'show that they are likely to succeed on their due-process challenge to the provisions for which they likely have standing,' the judge said, adding that they haven't 'identified a protected property or liberty interest that these provisions threaten' or shown enough evidence to back claims about the Trump administration's orders being arbitrarily enforced. The lawsuit Related Stories 5/2/2025 5/2/2025 The groups argued that that the president's orders 'will severely limit the organizations' ability to provide critical social and health services such as HIV treatment, fair housing, equal employment opportunities, affordable credit, civil rights protections, and many others,' and would harm 'people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and people living with HIV,' the Lambda release said. A statement from the White House on Trump's order on DEI grants said that for the past 60 years, corporations, governments, law enforcement, and schools have increasingly used 'dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called' DEI programs, which the administration argued was in violation of civil rights laws. The second moved to end 'radical and wasteful' federal programs involving DEI and preferencing, which impacts 'federal contractors who have provided DEI training or DEI training materials to agency or department employees.' DEI policies are part of an organizational framework that its proponents say reduces discrimination on the basis of identity or disability and provides more representation to groups that some say have been subject to discrimination for their identities or disabilities. But DEI policies, which were rolled out rapidly across industries and the government after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, have come under fire in recent years, particularly from Republicans. A handful of major companies have started to or have already rolled back their DEI-related policies in recent months, including Walmart, Tractor Supply Co., John Deere, and McDonald's. Its proponents, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, have
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge declines to block parts of Trump gender, DEI executive orders
A federal judge on Friday declined to block the enforcement of key provisions in President Trump's executive orders involving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender in a challenge by three civil and human rights organizations. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly denied the advocacy groups' request for a preliminary injunction, which would have prohibited the Trump administration from implementing parts of three executive orders against the challengers. The judge said they failed to establish standing for half of the challenged provisions, and on the other provisions, their constitutional claims 'falter for various reasons.' 'The motion before the Court is not about whether DEI policies, however defined in a given context, are good public policy. Nor is it about whether specific DEI initiatives comply with antidiscrimination law,' Kelly wrote in a 58-page order. 'Instead, it is about whether Plaintiffs have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the executive orders at issue. 'Because they are not likely to prevail on the merits, the Court will deny the motion,' he said. The three organizations — National Urban League, National Fair Housing Alliance and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago — sued earlier this year, contending that Trump's orders violate their First Amendment rights by censoring their views on DEI, accessibility and transgender rights. They also said the orders limit their ability to provide social and health services, like HIV treatment, fair housing and civil rights protections. Donya Khadem, a lawyer for the groups, said during a hearing in March that the breadth of the orders has made it challenging to know how to comply. She pointed to the president's executive order titled 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.' 'Does that mean they can't say transgender people exist?' she asked, suggesting that 'even minimal loss' of First Amendment freedom amounts to irreparable harm. But Kelly, the judge, pushed back and noted the challenge of creating a 'bright line' rule as to when conditions on government funding become unconstitutional. 'Why isn't the president permitted to have his or her policy priorities?' he asked. Khadem said there are 'constitutional limits' to how a president can implement their policy agenda, calling Trump's perspective that DEI is 'un-American' amounts to viewpoint discrimination. Kelly also questioned Justice Department lawyer Pardis Gheibi over the confusion caused by Trump's orders during the March hearing, where arguments for and against a preliminary injunction were made. 'Plaintiffs can't tell what's covered,' he said. 'What is DEI and what is not?' Gheibi said any questions the organizations have about Trump's orders amount to 'legal advice,' not evidence of the orders' deficiencies. She said the orders don't 'rise or fall' on whether a legal memo explaining their scope was attached. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Judge declines to block parts of Trump gender, DEI executive orders
A federal judge on Friday declined to block the enforcement of key provisions in President Trump's executive orders involving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender in a challenge by three civil and human rights organizations. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly denied the advocacy groups' request for a preliminary injunction, which would have prohibited the Trump administration from implementing parts of three executive orders against the challengers. The judge said they failed to establish standing for half of the challenged provisions, and on the other provisions, their constitutional claims 'falter for various reasons.' 'The motion before the Court is not about whether DEI policies, however defined in a given context, are good public policy. Nor is it about whether specific DEI initiatives comply with antidiscrimination law,' Kelly wrote in a 58-page order. 'Instead, it is about whether Plaintiffs have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the executive orders at issue. 'Because they are not likely to prevail on the merits, the Court will deny the motion,' he said. The three organizations — National Urban League, National Fair Housing Alliance and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago — sued earlier this year, contending that Trump's orders violate their First Amendment rights by censoring their views on DEI, accessibility and transgender rights. They also said the orders limit their ability to provide social and health services, like HIV treatment, fair housing and civil rights protections. Donya Khadem, a lawyer for the groups, said during a hearing in March that the breadth of the orders has made it challenging to know how to comply. She pointed to the president's executive order titled 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.' 'Does that mean they can't say transgender people exist?' she asked, suggesting that 'even minimal loss' of First Amendment freedom amounts to irreparable harm. But Kelly, the judge, pushed back and noted the challenge of creating a 'bright line' rule as to when conditions on government funding become unconstitutional. 'Why isn't the president permitted to have his or her policy priorities?' he asked. Khadem said there are 'constitutional limits' to how a president can implement their policy agenda, calling Trump's perspective that DEI is 'un-American' amounts to viewpoint discrimination. Kelly also questioned DOJ lawyer Pardis Gheibi over the confusion caused by Trump's orders during the March hearing, where arguments for and against a preliminary injunction were made. 'Plaintiffs can't tell what's covered,' he said. 'What is DEI and what is not?' Gheibi said any questions the organizations have about Trump's orders amount to 'legal advice,' not evidence of the orders' deficiencies. She said the orders don't 'rise or fall' on whether a legal memo explaining their scope was attached.
