Adolphus M. Pruitt: Addressing the access-to-capital crisis for underserved St. Louis communities
March 20th, 2021
Attention to equity and inclusion for underserved communities of color is more pronounced today than ever. In recent reporting by Peabody Award-winning journalist Aaron Glantz, some stark statistics show that discriminatory lending practices still persist. For those in the African American community, this comes as no surprise. But readers may be surprised to learn that, shockingly, the gap between African American home ownership and white home ownership is wider today than in the Jim Crow era. In fact, systemic racial biases are essentially built-in to credit score algorithms and underwriting resulting in a continuing access-to-capital crisis for underserved communities. Communities of color are disproportionately denied for lending products such as