Those numbers are mind-boggling. A series by reporter Bill Dedman showed a disheartening gap in the number of loans received by white residents and black residents from the city's major banks and savings and loans.
Whites receive five times as many home loans as blacks of the same income.
The study was careful to compare neighborhoods of similar homes, rates of growth and levels of income. Still, the figures are astonishing. Financial institutions return about 9 cents of each dollar deposited by blacks in home loans to black areas. They return 15 cents of each dollar deposited by whites in home loans to white areas. Only two of the 88 institutions studied agreed to disclose their racial figures on home loan applications.