VUU heads to NCAA playoffs A10
Richmond Free Press © 2015 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOL. 24 NO. 47
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
www.richmondfreepress.com
Locked out Report: Fewer mortgages approved in predominately African-American, Latino areas By Jeremy M. Lazarus
The greater the number of AfricanAmericans and Latinos living in a Richmond neighborhood, the tougher it is for home buyers in the neighborhood to get a mortgage approved or for existing owners to get their home loans refinanced. That’s the rule of thumb that prevails among banks and online mortgage lenders, according to a new report from the Richmond-based fair housing watchdog group, Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia. The report suggests that mortgage lenders, including the five that make the most home loans to city residents, Wells Fargo, SunTrust and Bank of America and online lenders Capital Center and Movement Mortgage, could be flouting federal fair housing laws. Those laws date back nearly 50 years and were put in place to end private and government-enforced housing segregation and longstanding racial disparities in lending. Lenders deny any return to the practice of redlining or basing lending on where people live. They indicate that credit scores, housing values and other raceneutral factors are at work. But the HOME report seems to show that racial and ethnic disparities remain a fact of life when it comes to buying or refinancing a home. “For each percentage point increase in the minority population in a (neighborhood), 12.5 fewer mortgages could expect to be made,” study author Brian Koziol found. HOME’s findings are based on a review of seven years of reports lenders submitted to the federal government about mortgage applications, approvals and denials that include the race and ethnicity of wouldbe borrowers. Mr. Koziol also found that for “each
percentage point increase in the number of minority applicants per (neighborhood),” lenders made 46 fewer loans. The fair housing group reviewed lenders’ Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reports for Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2013. This period largely covers the Great Recession, when the mortgage market collapsed and
more than 4,700 Richmond homes went into foreclosure. As the report notes, by 2013, lending for homes in Richmond had been cut nearly in half compared to 2007, and denials of loans rose as credit was tightened. Please turn to A4
Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
Where’s the cat? Volunteer Inez Crews engages the attention and participation of pre-schoolers Tuesday at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Learning Center in the East End as she reads “Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes.” The book is part of the monthly read aloud and share program sponsored by RVA Reads. Each youngster will get a new book each month to take home and read and share with their families. Story on A6.
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Meet Personality and youth orator Elijah Coles-Brown B2
NOVEMBER 19-21, 2015
Leonard W. Lambert, longtime Richmond lawyer, dies at 77 By Joey Matthews
“My mother said it was important to be educated and give something back to the church and to the community.” Leonard W. Lambert Sr. told the Free Press those were the life lessons his mother, Mary Frances Warden Lambert, taught him and his six siblings long before her death in August 2014. Mr. Lambert took those words to heart in his decades of legal and community service in Richmond and surrounding areas. He had a longtime law practice, Leonard W. Lambert & Associates, in Church Hill. His daughter, Linda Lambert Anderson, and son, Brice E. Lambert, both practice law with the firm. He became Richmond’s first African-American judge in 1973 when he was named a substitute judge for the Richmond General District Court, less than a year before now retired Judge Willard H. Douglas Jr. was named to fill Mr. Lambert a vacant seat on the court. Mr. Lambert is being remembered following his death Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015, in Richmond. He was 77. The family was still making funeral arrangements Wednesday evening at the Free Press deadline. Outpourings of affection and warm recollections were offered by some whose lives Mr. Lambert had deeply touched. “Leonard was a dear friend and someone I admired as a person and as a lawyer,” said George Keith Martin, managing partner at the Richmond office of McGuireWoods in Downtown. “He was devoted to his family and friends … and was, by nature, an encourager. “As a lawyer, he was admired by all because of his sharp mind and superior legal skills,” Mr. Martin continued. “He was always very generous with his time. He helped me and countless other lawyers when we were young and trying to establish our careers. “Leonard was a gem and we were blessed to have him in our lives.” Judge Roger L. Gregory of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, shared office space with Mr. Lambert in the early 1980s. “He was a wonderful friend,” Judge Gregory said. “He was always so unselfish in sharing his talents as a lawyer with younger lawyers. I remember him helping me in terms of handling a personal injury matter. “He comes from a sharing family,” he added. “He was full of life, had a great sense of humor and you never saw him in a bad mood. He always exuded great professionalism. He’s going to be sorely missed in the community.” Please turn to A4
VCU now working on new children’s hospital By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Virginia Commonwealth University plans to take the lead in developing a new inpatient children’s hospital in Richmond. After rebuffing a private group’s concept of an independent, freestanding hospital on the Boulevard, VCU is moving to create a plan for a dedicated hospital for children on its medical campus in Downtown. Within 60 to 90 days, VCU expects to unveil an updated facilities plan for the medical campus that would include a proposed hospital for children to complement the expensive children’s outpatient pavilion now under construction at 10th
and Broad streets next to City Hall. The VCU effort is gaining momentum following the collapse of plans by the Virginia Children’s Hospital Alliance to create a new hospital separate from the existing ones operated by Richmond’s three major hospital systems, HCA, Bon Secours and VCU Health, the medical arm of the university. “We have heard the community concerns about fragmented pediatric services and the need to pull them together,” said Pam Lepley, VCU spokeswoman. The goal, she said, would be for the new hospital to address such problems and improve cooperation with the pediatric operations of the two other hospital systems. Among other things, a new hospital would consolidate ser-
Va. pioneer to receive Medal of Freedom 97-year-old NASA mathematician headed to White House for highest civilian honor
vices spread over at least three buildings on the VCU campus. Currently, the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU has inpatient beds in the Main Hospital and at its Brook Road campus, where children needing longterm rehabilitation are placed. Ms. Lepley said questions about the size, scope, price tag, location and timetable for the hospital would not be answered until the new plan is unveiled. But she indicated that Ms. Lepley the proposal would not sit on the shelf. It has previously taken VCU four to five years to secure approvals for and to design and build a new hospital. According to Dr. Bruce K. Rubin, who heads the VCU Pediatric Department and is physician-in-chief for the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, such a hospital would “leverage the research and educational facilities” on the medical campus while providing “world-class care for young patients.” Besides the 42 beds in the nursery for newborns, he said that 175 inpatient beds in a modern facility “would be adequate.” Please turn to A4
By Thomas Kidd
Former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson could not have calculated her trajectory to the White House. The 97-year-old Newport News resident will be among 17 Americans receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — at the White House on Tuesday, Nov. 24. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is presented to individuals who have made meritorious contributions to U.S. security, national interest, world peace or cultural endeavors. Mrs. Johnson is being recognized for her pioneering work in America’s aeronautics and space program with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the agency that preceded NASA. Her mathematic computations have influenced every major space program — from America’s first manned space flight by Alan Shepard in 1961 to Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon in 1969 and all the way to the Space Shuttle program. When she started with NACA in1953, it “was a time when computers wore skirts,” Mrs. Johnson said in a Please turn to A4
Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
View of the North Hospital at 1300 E. Marshall St. on the medical the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU is now making plans to replace the building, previously known as the E.G. Williams Hospital, that dates to the mid-1950s. This move is revving up the school’s plans to develop an inpatient hospital for children.