Consumer advocacy’s short memory

You know, here at HW, we remember the housing boom well. In particular, we remember local community groups targeting lenders for ‘redlining’ because lower-income (read: less credit worthy) borrowers weren’t getting a shot at participating in the “historic housing boom.” We also remember how everyone looked to the Homeownership Preservation Foundation as a beacon for how foreclosure prevention should work, because GMAC went out of its way to partner with and help fund the nonprofit’s efforts. Now that the boom is over, of course, those same groups are blaming the industry for ‘reverse redlining’ — and, via the Wall Street Journal, we see that cosumer advocates are now questioning HPF’s “cozy” relationship with GMAC. Funny how that works.