In Brief: Calif. Groups Ask Fed for Plan on Loan Bias

Twenty-eight community groups on Thursday asked Robert Parry, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to call a meeting of California's largest financial institutions within 10 days to devise a plan for combating mortgage discrimination.

The activists want a five-year plan hammered out that would nearly double minority homeownership in the state to 72%, the level of homeownership among whites living in the state.

A Sept. 30 release urges Mr. Parry "to demonstrate the same bold leadership to save minority homeownership as his New York counterpart did last week in a $3.5 billion bailout of a billionaire-led hedge fund." (New York Fed President William McDonough convinced commercial and investment bankers to rescue Long-Term Capital Management LP.)

The groups, led by the Greenlining Coalition in San Francisco, said Fed data show the number of conventional mortgages made in California between 1994 and 1997 to Latinos and African-Americans declined 15% while lending to whites jumped more than 40%.

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