Kathleen Day

athleen Day, MBA, manages media for the Washington office of the Center for Responsible Lending. The Center for Responsible Lending is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. CRL is affiliated with Self-Help, one of the nation's largest community development financial institutions (CDFIs). In the late 1990s, homeowners began coming to Self-Help Credit Union seeking help to avoid foreclosure. In 1999, Self-Help worked with a state coalition to help pass the North Carolina Predatory Lending Law, the first such law in the country. In 2002, Self-Help established the Center for Responsible Lending to build on initial successes and expand our focus to include practices outside of mortgage lending, such as payday lending. Since then, CRL has conducted or commissioned landmark studies on predatory lending practices and the impact of state laws that protect borrowers. We have also supported state efforts to combat predatory lending and worked for regulatory changes to require responsible practices among lenders nationwide. Day joined CRL in Sept. 2007 after 22 years as a business reporter for the Washington Post covering the financial services industry and its many scandals. Before that she worked as a reporter at the Los Angeles Times and was on the start-up staff of USA Today, where in two paragraphs she summed up the break-up of what was then the world’s largest company, AT&T. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and an MBA in finance from New York University. She is the author of S&L Hell: The People and Politics Behind the $1 Trillion Savings-and-Loan Crisis, published by W.W. Norton.