Blacks in Evanston are nearly five time more likely than whites to end up with high-cost home loans.

That’s the conclusion of an analysis of federal mortgage lending data by the Chicago Reporter.

Evanston had the highest disparity of any suburb studied, though in Wilmette and Oak Park blacks were more than three times as likely to end up with high cost loans as whites.

The federal data doesn’t explain the causes of the disparity, but the article suggests that stronger efforts to alert black home buyers to the risks associated with high-cost loans could help address the problem.

Bill Smith is the editor and publisher of Evanston Now.

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