PROVIDENCE — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, of Massachusetts, a key architect of the nation’s $700-billion bailout package, told students at Brown University yesteday that the nation’s housing crisis and banking industry woes are the fault of thousands of loans made by unregulated entities.

Speaking at a long-scheduled lecture, the chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee pointed to the inability of House Republicans to institute tighter lending controls during their 12 years in power as the reason for the spiraling problems, including the subprime mortgage mess that has soured the nation’s economy.

Frank shrugged off charges that Democrats –– himself included –– failed to rein in mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which have since been taken over by the federal government.

His remarks in Providence came on the first full day of Wall Street trading since passage of the massive bailout, a day when the financial markets both here and abroad tumbled sharply, with the Dow falling below the 10,000 mark for the first time in four years.

The congressman attributed yesterday’s slump to a combination of factors including the delay in implementing the rescue package and the short-term investor jitters that may accompany it.

The news that more jobs were lost in September than in any other month since 2003 likely played a role in the falloff as well, Frank said.

Hours earlier, at a mortgage-foreclosure symposium in Boston, Frank called the Republican criticism of Democrats over the housing crisis a veiled attack on the poor that is racially motivated.

“Let’s be honest: the fact that some of the poor people are black doesn’t hurt them either, from their standpoint,” he said. “This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people.”

In Rhode Island, the congressman –– whose district covers several Southeastern Massachusetts communities, including New Bedford and parts of Fall River –– steered clear of the race issue. But he told the packed crowd of mostly college students at Brown that the GOP is misguided in trying to blame the country’s housing mess on efforts to expand affordable home ownership through the Community Reinvestment Act.

Loans issued under that program originate from regulated institutions and are not the root of the crisis, Frank reiterated more than once during a 40-minute speech infused with humor and a dose of partisan sarcasm.

The real problems began with unregulated loans approved with low interest rates and lenient credit standards, he said.

Before the lecture, Frank spoke to reporters, along with U.S Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin, who together defended the bailout.

Calling Frank “the quarterback or the general” of the package, Langevin applauded his colleagues’ efforts to “put together a workable rescue plan that was important to the country to protect our credit markets but ultimately [protects] the taxpayer.”

Kennedy said Frank’s work with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke helped ensure that the final version of the legislation, which passed the House on its second try, included stricter oversight, limits on executive compensation and aid for struggling homeowners.

“This bill, which was so repugnant to so many here in Rhode Island and across the country, was a bill that was made and improved so dramatically because of the expertise and leadership of Chairman Frank,” Kennedy said.

As the trio spoke, chaos continued to unfold in the financial markets, with the Dow ending more than 360 points lower. Frank predicted that the plunge was temporary and would likely rebound.

The rescue plan, he said, “is not going to take effect for a few weeks and if people are still nervous, I can’t blame them.”

The larger problem, the congressman told his audience later, is how the country will prevent a financial crisis of this magnitude in the future and restore investor confidence for the long haul.

Instituting better controls on lending and on other Wall Street ventures must be a priority for Congress when it returns after the November election, he said, though he offered few specifics to flesh out those plans.

“This was not just a couple of financial people getting in over their heads. It was a lack of sensible regulation of the financial industry as a matter of conscious public policy,” he said. “The problem we have is this: the victims of those mistakes were not just going to be people on Wall Street … we’re talking about construction workers … we’re talking about vendors … small-business people not getting paid on time … we’re not doing this as any favor to Wall Street, we’re doing this to prevent a credit crisis.”

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

cneedham@projo.com