Community Development

Federal Reserve Board of Governors Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen delivered the keynote address June 9 at the 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Policy Summit, held in Cleveland, Ohio. She focused on the state of the housing market, especially low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, followed by policy initiatives to address some of their challenges.

Yellen began with an example of how many low- and moderate-income communities have been hit especially hard by the economic downturn, including a large number in and around Cleveland. "Almost 10 percent of current Cleveland residents who have ever taken out a mortgage have a foreclosure reflected on their credit report—a rate double that of the rest of the nation."

Yellen previously served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She is a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. She has served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors as well as the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

A pdf version of "Housing Market Developments and Their Effects on Low- and Moderate-Income Neighborhoods" is also available.