Bank of America will pay $36.8 million to members of the military it improperly foreclosed on between 2006 and 2010, according to a settlement it reached with the federal government in 2011, the Justice Department announced this week.

Bank of America was already paying 142 military members under the original 2011 agreement, but a further review required by the settlement found 155 additional military homeowners who were subject to improper foreclosures, the Justice Department said. In total, Bank of America will pay more than 300 military members, as Reuters reports:

Each of 316 service members will receive at least $116,785, plus compensation and with interest, for any home equity lost. [...]

“Our men and women in the military should not have to worry about a bank foreclosing on their home while they bravely serve our country,” Eric Halperin, Special Counsel for Fair Lending in the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

In 2011, federal regulators said banks may have improperly foreclosed on more than 5,000 members of the military and violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which provides certain financial protections to military members. Bank of America was also one of the five banks that reached a settlement with the federal government over widespread mortgage and foreclosure abuses. The Justice Department is still reviewing foreclosures from all five banks for violations of the Servicemembers act.

If you’re a black woman looking for to refinance your home, the forces of discrimination are working against you. If you’re a white man, you’ll probably have an easier go of it.

According to a new study from the Woodstock Institute, banks discriminate on the basis of both gender and race when they make decisions about which loans they’ll approve. That goes for both mortgage applications and refinancing loans, and it’s worst for African American women:

Female-headed joint applications are much less likely to be originated than are male-headed joint applications. Controlling for the loan-to-income ratio, female-headed joint applications overall were 24 percent less likely to have purchase mortgages originated, and 39 percent less likely to have refinance mortgages originated, than were male-headed joint applications. The disparities were maintained across all racial categories. The largest disparity is for African American female-headed joint applications for purchase, which were 34 percent less likely to be originated than were African American male-headed joint applications, and refinance applications, which were 44 percent less likely to be originated.

Latino and Asian women, too, struggle to get trust from the banks, as this chart illustrates:

The blatant discrimination from banks exposed in this study isn’t the first of its kind. Indeed, the industry has a long and sordid history of discrimination. Last year, one mortgage company forked over $3.5 million after an investigation found it had been overpricing loans to non-white borrowers. Similarly, Bank of America paid out the Department of Housing and Urban Development after it denied a home mortgage to a lesbian couple.

(HT: Next New Deal)

A nonprofit group that supports fair housing has filed a lawsuit claiming that Bank of America, the nation’s second largest mortgage servicer, has failed to maintain and market foreclosed homes in African American and Latino neighborhoods the same way it does in white neighborhoods.

The National Fair Housing Alliance filed the complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development after examining Bank of America-owned properties in eight American cities and finding “significant racial disparities” in how the properties were maintained and marketed to potential buyers, Reuters reports:

The group reviewed 373 properties owned, managed or serviced by Bank of America in eight U.S. cities as part of its ongoing examination of how U.S. lenders maintain bank-owned properties. Investigators evaluated properties for problems such as broken windows, overgrown lawns, trash accumulation and a lack of “for sale” signs.

“We have found significant racial disparities,” Shanna Smith, chief executive officer of the National Fair Housing Alliance in a conference call with reporters.

NFHA filed similar complaints against Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest mortgage servicer, and U.S. Bancorp earlier this year after it released a report detailing the disparities between white and black and Latino neighborhoods. The report looked at bank-owned homes in nine cities and found that properties in black and Latino neighborhoods were more likely to be left in disrepair than homes in white neighborhoods, driving down home prices, increasing vagrancy and crime rates, and making it harder to sell homes in those neighborhoods.

Discrimination was widespread throughout the mortgage and foreclosure process leading up to and after the housing crisis. Black and Latino borroweres were twice as likely to have been affected by the crisis because banks that used predatory practices against borrowers were even more predatory toward minorities. Pushing qualified lenders into subprime loans cost minorities as much as $100,000 in additional interest payments.

The nation’s five biggest banks agreed to a $25 billion foreclosure fraud settlement back in February that required them to provide $17 billion of mortgage relief to troubled homeowners. However, one of the banks, Bank of America, is hardly holding up its end of the bargain. According to a new report, as of June 30, Bank of America had not modified a single mortgage under the settlement to reduce the amount that a borrower owes:

Bank of America Corp is lagging other banks in quickly executing mortgage modifications required by the U.S. government as part of the $25 billion foreclosure settlement finalized in March, according to a report released on Wednesday…Unlike its competitors, Bank of America did not finalize any modifications of first-lien mortgages and also did not complete any refinances by June 30.

Bank of America admitted earlier this month that it was lagging behind on loan modifications, but this report shows just how incompetent the bank has been when it comes to moving homeowners into more sustainable mortgages. Bank of America does lead the settlement banks affected in getting its borrowers through short sales, but as Firedoglake’s David Dayen explained, “the idea of banks granting short sales as a punishment for defrauding consumers and state courts is ridiculous. They’re all too happy to get a higher price for a short sale than they would get in foreclosure, with the added benefit of never having to take the foreclosed home and maintain it.”

Prior to the settlement, one whistleblower alleged that Bank of America intentionally blocked homeowners from receiving federal mortgage aid. But perhaps all these homeowners simply weren’t willing to erase the mean things they said about Bank of America on Twitter.

When it comes to getting borrowers through foreclosure prevention programs, Bank of America has lagged the other large mortgage servicers in the country for years. Initially, the bank blamed its borrowers for the lack of success, before eventually acknowledging that its mortgage modification processes are wholly inadequate.

According to a report today in Bloomberg News, things still haven’t changed:

Bank of America Corp., plagued by complaints about customer service in its mortgage unit, said it hasn’t yet refinanced a “significant number” of loans as part of the industry’s $25 billion settlement of foreclosure abuses.

The lender blamed the “time required to underwrite” loans for why it hasn’t completed many of its planned $1 billion in modifications, according to a filing earlier this month. By contrast, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) said last week it has already finished a “significant portion” of its $500 million program and Wells Fargo (WFC) & Co. said it expected to complete its $900 million requirement two years ahead of the 2015 deadline.

Under the terms of the $25 billion foreclosure fraud settlement that the nation’s five biggest banks cut with a coalition of attorneys generals and the federal government, the banks are required to provide a certain amount of relief to struggling homeowners. So far, Bank of America has failed to keep up.

Bank of America has managed to produce some spectacular messes when it comes to foreclosures, including foreclosing on a homeowner over an 80 cent typo. The bank also foreclosed on a home that no longer exists, incorrectly repossessed a pet parrot, and foreclosed on an elderly couple for paying their mortgage too early.

Meanwhile, one whistleblower alleged that the bank intentionally blocked homeowners from getting federal mortgage aid. But, remember, the bank will give you a modification if you promise to erase the mean things you said about it on Twitter.

Last month, Bank of America foreclosed on a Los Angeles woman and her disabled daughter. Dima Rodriguez had spent thousands of dollars retrofitting her home to accommodate her daughter — who has cerebral palsy — and fell behind on her loan payments. Bank of America gave her a loan modification, and even though Rodriguez had made her trial modification payments for a year, the bank sold her house at auction, right out from under her.

However, Rodriguez and her daughter will get to stay in their home, thanks to some help from Occupy Wall Street protestors:

Desperate, Rodriguez contacted several community groups including Occupy Fights Foreclosures — the battle to save the Rodriguez home began. Suzanne O’Keeffe, with Occupy Fights Forclosures, says the bank didn’t treat the Rodriguez family right. She charged they not only didn’t fill out the proper paperwork to foreclose, they waited too long. [...]

Now, [Rodriguez] is determined not to look back. “It’s time to look forward,” Rodriguez said. “Thank God the bank listened.”

As ThinkProgress reported back in December, Bank of America is taking the Occupy movement’s foreclosure prevention actions seriously, warning employees to be prepared should Occupy make an appearance. Occupy protesters have successfully prevented foreclosures across the country, from Rochester to Minneapolis to Los Angeles.