"Closing the Gap: Improving Low-Income and Minority Communities Access to Wealth," is the theme for the 13th Annual St. Louis Regional Fair Housing training sponsored by the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (EHOC). The conference will take place on Thursday, April 29, 2010, from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM.

EHOC invites lenders, regulators, housing counselors, real estate agents and community advocates to join together to focus on solutions for bringing low-income and minority communities into the financial mainstream. Participants will engage with working groups to design ways to overcome impediments to accessing mainstream financial services. The conference responds to a recent FDIC report that metropolitan St. Louis has the highest percentage of African Americans who are "unbanked" of any metro area, and the greatest racial disparity in households who are unbanked. 

The conference will feature a keynote by Stella Adams, recipient of the National Fair Housing Alliance's Fair Lending Advocacy Award and the HUD FHEO Pioneer Award for her work in fighting predatory lending. Adams is the former executive director of the North Carolina Fair Housing Center and board member of the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina. She serves on the Federal Reserve Board Consumer Advisory Council, which advises the Board on the exercise of its responsibilities under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. Adams' advocacy work helped to pass the strongest anti-predatory lending state law in the country.