A high crime area isn't desirable as a place to own a home. That also makes it an undesirable place for a mortgage lender to place money at risk on real estate in that undesirable place. The banks had that figured out, but they were accused of "redlining" and it was given a racial slant because the high crime area was occupied by "minorities". The leftist politicians forced the banks to cave when the race card was played...on pain of being prohibited from doing ANY business at all. The rest is history.
Correction, "the rest" is the ghost of elections past. There are future elections ahead. IOW, voters may forget, but ACORN never does.