In addition to the banks, other organizations are also criticizing the OCC’s decision on Coinbase. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), a prominent banking organization, slammed OCC for approving Coinbase’s application to become a national trust bank.

“The CFPB can’t simply gut rules by press releases on its whim,” National Community Reinvestment Coalition CEO Jesse Van Tol told American Banker. “No court has ever said any part of the law is a problem.”

“The CFPB is subverting the rule of law by telling the largest banks, credit unions and fintech companies they can ignore the small business lending rule,” Van Tol said in a statement Thursday. “While they disingenuously frame their total disrespect for the law as a matter of fairness, failing to enforce Section 1071 rules will in fact prevent transparency for the public, shield financial institutions from unfair practices coming to light, and delay prosperity for small businesses.”

Date Issued: February 24, 2025
Submission Deadline: March 10, 2025
Contact for Inquiries and Submissions: Jacelyn Matthews, Director National Training Academy, instructorrfps@ncrc.org

Overview

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) is a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to making a Just Economy a local reality and national priority. Through research, advocacy, and training, NCRC empowers stakeholders to advance policies and practices that support economic equity.

The National Training Academy (NTA) is a key initiative of NCRC, providing comprehensive training and capacity-building programs for community advocates, housing counselors, financial institutions, policymakers, and others. Our mission is to equip individuals and organizations with the skills and knowledge necessary to advance equitable economic opportunities in their communities.

NCRC is pleased to announce this Request for Proposals to enhance the impact of our training programs, the NTA seeks qualified instructors to deliver dynamic, high-quality training sessions on topics related to community reinvestment, fair housing and lending, housing counseling, financial literacy/counseling, and economic equity.

Scope of Work

Instructors selected through this RFP will be responsible for the following:

• Delivering training sessions in-person, virtually, or in a hybrid format, as required.
• Designing and implementing engaging instructional methods tailored to adult learners.
• Developing and providing course descriptions, learning objectives, presentations, and training materials.
• Facilitating interactive workshops and discussions.
• Conducting participant assessments and providing feedback.
• Submitting post-training reports summarizing session outcomes and participant feedback.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible applicants are those individuals with minimum of 2 years of demonstrated experience providing training services in nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and academic institutions focused on:

• Housing Counseling/HUD requirements
• The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)
• Affordable housing policy and practices
• Financial literacy and consumer protection
• Workforce Development
• SNAP Employment & Training
• Community Engagement and Collaboration
• Professional Development

Priority will be given to proposals from instructors serving low-to moderate-income communities or underserved communities within the United States.

For-profit entities, political organizations, and projects that are not aligned with NCRC’s mission are ineligible.

Due to federal grant restrictions, we are unable to hire individuals who have been convicted of a violation under federal law relating to an election for federal office.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience delivering training to diverse audiences, particularly adult learners.
• Strong communication and facilitation skills.
• Familiarity with NCRC’s mission and programs.
• Proficiency with digital learning platforms and tools (e.g., Zoom, Adobe Connect, etc).
• Certified HUD housing counselors particularly for courses that encompass the HUD core topics/competencies.

Proposal Requirements

Interested candidates should submit a proposal that includes:

1. Cover Letter/Statement of Interest: A brief introduction highlighting your interest in serving as an instructor for the National Training Academy.
2. Curriculum Vitae/Resume: A resume detailing your educational background, work experience, and relevant qualifications.
3. Instructional Approach: An outline of your proposed methodology and strategies for engaging adult learners.
4. Sample Work: A sample lesson plan, presentation, or training material you have previously developed and have ownership rights to.
5. References: Contact information for at least two professional references who can speak to your instructional expertise.

Proposal Submission Details

• Format: Proposals should be submitted as a single PDF file.
• Submission Method: Email submissions to instructorrfps@ncrc.org
• Deadline: Proposals must be received no later than March 10, 2025. Late submissions will not be considered.
• Acknowledgment: Applicants will receive confirmation of receipt within 48 hours.

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Timeline

• RFP Release Date: February 25, 2025
• Proposal Submission Deadline: Mar 10, 2025
• Review Period: March 11-24, 2025
• Notification of Selection: March 31, 2025

Terms and Conditions

• All proposals will be treated as confidential.
• NCRC reserves the right to request additional information or clarifications on any proposal(s)
• NCRC reserves the right to reject any or all proposals.
• NCRC reserves the right to negotiate terms with the selected instructor(s)
• Selected instructors must sign a Services Agreement that confirms payment terms, including that funds will be used solely for the purposes outlined in the Agreement.
• All work products created with funding provided by NCRC will be considered work made for hire and will become the sole property of NCRC unless otherwise agreed in writing

Appendices

For additional information about NCRC and the National Training Academy, please refer to:

• NCRC Website
• NTA Course Catalog

We look forward to reviewing your proposal and appreciate your interest in supporting the mission of the National Training Academy at NCRC.

For years, Father Joe’s Villages, a nonprofit homeless services provider and housing developer in Southern California, could reliably count on the insurance premiums for its properties rising up to 10 percent every year.

But this year, the insurance bill hit $4.4 million — quadruple the previous year. And that was on top of a sharp increase in deductibles.

The sudden rate increase was hardly unique. From Rhode Island to Louisiana, and Texas to Washington, developers of affordable housing have been reeling from exponential surges in property insurance premiums.

Five U.S. cities are considered “impossibly unaffordable” when it comes to housing, placing them among the most expensive markets in the world, according to a new study.

Researchers at Chapman University and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Canada analyzed 94 major cities in eight countries and determined San Jose, California is the least affordable housing market in the U.S. The Silicon Valley metro was the fourth most unaffordable in the English-speaking world.

In fact, four of the top 10 least affordable housing markets on the list were in California: Los Angeles (5th), San Francisco (8th) and San Diego (10th). Honolulu, ranked sixth, was the only city outside the Golden State ranked near the top.

CNN has come under fire for denying media credentials to every Black-owned media entity, including those based in Atlanta, for the upcoming presidential debate on Thursday.

Despite granting over 600 media credentials, not even one was extended to Black-owned outlets, sparking outrage and accusations of systemic exclusion in a predominantly Black city.

Lizzie Turner has witnessed the impact of unaffordable housing and discrimination firsthand. As a community organizer for non-profit Nebraska Appleseed’s housing justice program, Collective Impact Lincoln she advocates for people who are trying to find safe and affordable places to live. One of the Lincoln residents Turner works with is a Black woman with children, who was forced out of her current living arrangements due to what she believed to be racial discrimination.

“She had to move into really terrible housing, and eventually [gave] it up because it was such a bad situation. She has been struggling to find housing since then,“ Turner said. “Black and brown folks do generally experience many more barriers in accessing housing, either because of blatant discrimination or their identity.”

I’ve had the privilege of being the editor of Shelterforce for 14 years, and I also worked there in the late 1990s, with a period of time in between in local news and working within the community development world. For those not familiar with Shelterforce, we’re a nearly 50-year-old national nonprofit publication founded by tenant organizers who then moved on to also become community developers, and the publication moved with them. Now we cover the entirety of the housing justice, affordable housing, and community development worlds.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today published updated loan-level data for public use collected through the National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO). The data also provide updated mortgage performance and credit information for a nationally representative sample of mortgage borrowers from 2013 to 2021.

Since 2014, FHFA and CFPB have sent quarterly surveys to borrowers who recently obtained mortgages. These surveys gather feedback on borrowers’ experiences during the mortgage process, their perceptions of the mortgage market, and their future expectations. Today’s release adds one additional year of new mortgage data through 2021.

Anyone wondering who would take Joe Biden’s spot on top of the Democratic presidential ticket should he drop out got an answer within mere hours of Biden’s long-anticipated withdrawal — Kamala Harris.

Democrats in office and the party’s elder statesmen and stateswomen quickly endorsed Harris, including those who were seen as possible challengers to her for the Democratic nomination. It appears the vice president has all but been anointed.

“While President Biden has dropped out of the 2024 race, we look forward to continuing to work with the administration on homeownership affordability issues over the remainder of his term,” said Taylor Stork, president of Community Home Lenders of America and COO of Developer’s Mortgage.

The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine on Wednesday said law and policy changes aimed at eliminating health disparities have made slow and uneven progress improving racial inequities over the past 20 years.

The Ending Unequal Treatment report found that people of color in 2024 are still disproportionately uninsured, underutilizing care services and underrepresented in the healthcare workforce. The report is funded by the National Institutes of Health and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and is a follow up to the academies’ 2003 study on pervasive inequities in care access, coverage and treatment between patients of color and their white peers.

Myrtle Beach’s scarce affordable housing inventory has driven some potential McLeod Health employees out of the market, a company vice president told city leaders on Tuesday.

“We haven’t had a hard time recruiting, [but] one thing that we are seeing is that housing for the $40,000 to $60,000 employee is really hard,” McLeod Loris Seacoast CEO Monica Vehige said during a city council workshop. “Attainable housing for that true middle class, that’s a lot of our support services.”

“The infighting, this brinkmanship … has led us to the place where we are today. The commonwealth is losing its patience,” said McDonald, the state’s lawyer.

Still unresolved is the issue of funding to keep Steward’s hospitals afloat through the next month. Massachusetts officials have offered $30 million in advance Medicaid payments to help the hospitals continue operating — but only if Steward signs sales agreements for its remaining five hospitals.