When editors with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting approached AP with a story on unfair lending practices, data editor Meghan Hoyer and data journalist Angel Kastanis saw an opportunity to use AP’s reach to expand the story and generate real impact.
Kastanis had previously wrangled the records made available by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for a story idea about Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s former bank, OneWest. That analysis didn’t lead to a story in the end, but it prepared her to dive in with the reporters from Reveal. She was able to independently verify Reveal’s analysis, and she worked with them to hone their methodology and findings.
Starting with 31 million records, representing nearly every mortgage loan application submitted in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, they found that 50 years after the federal Fair Housing Act, people of color are still denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts. The analysis found a pattern of denials across the country, including in major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia.
While Reveal took the lead on the national story, Kastanis and Hoyer worked to take the story deeper. The data distribution they prepared and shared with AP reporters and members showed 61 metro areas where applicants of color were more likely to be denied a conventional home purchase mortgage, even controlling for factors such as income, loan amount and neighborhood.
Kastanis restructured the data, shaping the overwhelming mass of figures into reports that allowed AP and member journalists to see quickly not only whether their reporting area exhibited redlining practices, but which lenders and neighborhoods were affected. Kastanis and Hoyer provided step-by-step instructions for finding local stories in the data, itemizing questions to ask and additional queries that could provide important local story material. Kastanis also identified localization possibilities for AP reporters by finding places where the story was strongest and helping AP reporters from those places tell their story.
Adrienne Stokes visits Firstrust Savings Bank in Philadelphia, Nov. 13, 2017. The bank denied her application for a $30,000 home improvement loan in 2015, citing a low credit score. She’d been steadily paying off her mortgage for decades and had about $200,000 in equity in her Point Breeze home at the time.
Sarah Blesener / Reveal via AP
Residential and commercial properties in the Point Breeze neighborhood in Philadelphia, Nov. 13, 2017. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was designed to correct the damage of redlining, a now-illegal practice in which the government warned banks away from neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrants and African Americans. The law didn’t anticipate a day when historically black neighborhoods would be sought out by young white homebuyers.
Sarah Blesener / Reveal via AP
A TD Bank storefront in Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 2017. African American and Latino borrowers are more likely to get turned down by TD Bank than by any other major mortgage lender. The bank turned down 54 percent of black homebuyers and 45 percent of Latino homebuyers, more than three times the industry averages.
Sarah Blesener / Reveal via AP
Pedestrians pass a now-closed Santander Bank branch in Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 2017. “We are committed to fair lending and continually review our compliance programs to ensure that all loan applicants are receiving fair treatment,” Boston-based Santander Bank said in a statement.
Sarah Blesener / Reveal via AP
Adrienne Stokes, a longtime resident of Philadelphia’s historically black Point Breeze neighborhood, stands inside her home, Nov. 13, 2017. In 2015, Stokes was denied a home improvement loan at her local bank, Firstrust Savings Bank.
Sarah Blesener / Reveal via AP
A burned-out car beside a vacant lot in the Point Breeze neighborhood in Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 2017. Fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in lending, African Americans and Latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts. In Philadelphia, African Americans and non-Hispanic whites make up a similar share of the population there, but the data showed whites received 10 times as many conventional mortgage loans in 2015 and 2016.
Sarah Blesener / Reveal via AP
The project benefitted from a team effort on the AP side: Business editors Brad Foss and Fred Monyak edited Reveal’s national pieces and put them on the wire. Graphics journalist Maureen Linke worked with Reveal’s graphics team to make sure their interactive met AP standards, and then helped members use the interactive map to zoom in to their area and embed it on their website.
Reveal reports the first hints of impact: Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are calling for hearings, and the stories continue to generate coverage and discussion.
To date, more than two dozen AP members have used the data to tell local stories, and even more created charts or added local details to the national story. Several more are still in the works. AP reporters Janie Har, Ryan Foley and Juan Lozano wrote state-specific stories released alongside Reveal’s main bar that got significant play in those states. Together, the national or local versions made it onto the covers of roughly two dozen newspapers, and the data analysis was featured on radio shows in Pennsylvania, Michigan and California.
Reveal executive editor Amy Pyle reports that the first hints of impact are coming in already, with lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia city hall calling for hearings, and the stories continue to generate more coverage and discussion.
For taking the story to the next level in a way only AP can, Kastanis and Hoyer receive this week’s $300 Best of the States prize.