“Binyamin Appelbaum brings us the story of Bruce Marks, the man who wants to bring subprime mortgage lending back.* He leads a nonprofit called the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America that has $10 billion in funding from Bank of America to, well, you know make loans to people who can’t make a down payment and can’t withstand a credit check.”

“It has enough money to mint about 50,000 homeowners, but Mr. Marks has a larger goal. He wants to show that it is possible to lend to lower-income borrowers on terms that are profitable and sustainable. He wants to expand homeownership. He wants to redeem the original idea behind subprime lending.”

“‘I think that everybody should have an opportunity to own a home,” he said in a recent interview. ‘We’ve got to rekindle hope in people, especially minorities who threw everything into the dream of homeownership and lost it.’”

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Read full Slate article here.