and a lower interest rate on the mortgage than the lender might have offered without the protection. African Americans and other racial minorities were largely denied access to FHA-backed loans, especially before 1950, and only gained access in a handful of suburban developments specifically built for all-black occupancy. Under the Eisenhower Administration, FHA tried to coax private developers to build more housing for minority buyers. This was done through its Voluntary Home Credit Mortgage Program. However, less housing was built under the program than expected, and FHA refused to deny insurance to developers who discriminated. The way FHA-backed loans were administered contributed to widening homeownership and racial wealth gap, even as they helped to build the white middle-class family. Until the latter half of the 1960s, the Federal Housing Administration served mainly as an insuring agency for loans made by private lenders. However, in recent years this role has been expanded as the agency became the administrator of interest rate subsidy and rent supplement programs. Important subsidy programs such as the Civil Rights Act of 1968 were established by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1974 the Housing and Community Development Act was passed. Its provisions significantly altered federal involvement in a wide range of housing and community development activities. The new law made a variety of changes in FHA activities, although it did not involve (as had been proposed) a complete rewriting and consolidation of the National Housing Act. However, it did include provisions relating to the lending and investment powers of federal savings and loan associations, the real estate lending authority of national banks, and the lending and depositary authority of federal credit unions. Further changes occurred in the 1977 Housing and Community Development Act, which raised ceilings on single-family loan amounts for savings and loan association lending, federal agency purchases, FHA insurance, and security for Federal Home Loan Bank advances. In 1980 the Housing and Community Development Act was passed; it permitted negotiated interest rates on certain FHA loans and created a new FHA rental subsidy program for middle-income families. On August 31, 2007, the FHA added a new refinancing program called FHA-Secure to help borrowers hurt by the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis. On March 6, 2008, the "FHA Forward" program was initiated. This is the part of the stimulus package that President George W. Bush had in place to raise the