Mission, Purpose and Operating Principles

Seattle/King County Coalition for Responsible Lending

Mission

Our mission is to coordinate the talents and resources of the Seattle-King County Coalition for Responsible Lending's member agencies in order to promote an affordable and equitable credit system, including equitable lending practices that eliminate predatory lending activities, without limiting consumer access to credit.

Purpose

The Seattle-King County Coalition for Responsible Lending (CRL) is an ad hoc membership organization of individual non-profit community agencies, government agencies, and consumer advocates that coordinate our efforts and work together on a campaign to eliminate predatory lending in the Seattle-King County region and in Washington State. To this end, the CRL will do the following:

• Create a forum of members agencies and consumer advocates, and affiliates from for-profit mortgage-related industries that will work together to share information and ideas and to engage in collaborative efforts to eliminate predatory lending and preserve home ownership in King County. The forum of members and affiliates shall be called the CRL Core Group.
  
  
• Research the degree to which predatory practices are utilized in the region and the local impact of such practices.
  
  
• Provide advocacy, outreach and education to reduce the number of predatory loans that are originated in the region.
  
  
• Provide remedial resources for victims of predatory loans.
  
  
• Provide information about legislative activity related to predatory lending and other consumer issues: the CRL membership will not engage in legislative advocacy work as an organization, however, CRL participants may discuss legislative issues at CRL functions so that individual members or affiliates may engage in legislative advocacy work on their own.

Operating Principles

The following principles will guide the operation of the Coalition:

• Actions of the Coalition will be based on the Mission Statement and the Statement of Purpose, as approved by the membership.
  
  
• Each Coalition partner will "do what it does best".
  
  
• Coalition actions will be guided by a strategic plan and established priorities, as determined by the Steering Committee and approved by the CRL members.
  
  
• We will maximize our resources by avoiding duplication of effort.
  
  
• The CRL will produce materials for use by coalition members.
  
  
• Each coalition committee will have a chair. Chair responsibilities include: developing the committee work plan, convening and chairing meetings, setting meeting agendas, reporting quarterly to the coalition and coordinating follow-up of work items.
  
  
• Members, affiliates, and individual affiliates will be required to sign the appropriate agreement and abide by its principles.