Founded in 1982 by Ralph Nader, Essential Information is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization involved in a variety of projects to encourage citizens to become active and engaged in their communities.

The organization's GIS Action for Economic and Social Justice Project addresses a range of crucial and closely interwoven social and economic justice needs. The project focuses primarily on core social and economic concerns: workers earning less than a livable wage, affordable housing needs, regressive federal budget policies, housing discrimination and exclusionary housing policies, and access to financial services, especially for community reinvestment purposes, small business, and small farms.

Subprime lending, which has grabbed newspaper headlines for the past several months, has been a long time concern for the organization.  Below is a map of Richmond, Virginia depicting the subprime lenders' market share of conventional refinancing loans in 2002 as viewed by census tract.  The diagonal overlay highlights minority residential areas.

Courtesy of the Essential Information Web site http://www.public-gis.org/index.html