HUD has released a study showing that the number of subprime home loans is skyrocketing in predominantly black neighborhoods and low-income neighborhoods. While expanded access to credit is critical, there is growing evidence that some lenders may be engaged in predatory lending that is making homeownership far more costly for blacks and poor families than for whites and middle-class families.

The study - Unequal Burden: Income and Racial Disparities in Subprime Lending in America - at the start of the meeting of a new Predatory Lending Task Force, and announced that Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers will join him as co-chair of the Task Force.

Key findings of the Department of Housing and Urban Development analysis show that: 1) From 1993 to 1998, the number of subprime refinancing loans increased ten-fold. 2) Subprime loans are three times more likely in low income neighborhoods than in high-income neighborhoods. 3) Subprime loans are five times more likely in black neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. 4) Homeowners in high-income black areas are twice as likely as homeowners in low-income white areas to have subprime loans.