As a longtime executive at Leominster Credit Union, Oscar O’Connor has played a role reinvigorating the housing market of north-central Massachusetts.

Last year, O’Connor completed a 10-year stint as vice president of the North Central Massachusetts Community Reinvestment Act Coalition, which sponsors programs benefiting low-income residents.D. Oscar O’Connor

Since the late 1980s, the organization has sponsored a program designed to put abandoned residential properties in Fitchburg and Leominster back on the tax rolls. But it wasn’t until home prices plummeted during the recession that the program really started to fulfill its potential.

“The numbers worked because the home prices were so low – we could purchase the property and rehab it and still have a viable loan. Now that prices are coming down, it’s starting to gain momentum,” O’Connor said.

The coalition sponsors approximately 10 transactions a year, in which investors acquire blighted multifamily buildings for a small down payment, often as low as 2 percent. Banks provide an 80-percent mortgage, while public sources furnish the second mortgage.

Leominster Credit Union, for its part, supports the Habitat for Humanity of North Central Massachusetts, providing free servicing of all of its loans for the past decade on affordable housing projects.

A Connecticut native, O’Connor settled in Leominster after meeting his wife-to-be while attending St. Anselm College. He joined the credit union in 1983 as a manager in collections, and spent 20 years as vice president of retail lending. In January, he became vice president of lending operations, where he oversees consumer and indirect lending, collections and loan services.

O’Connor’s leadership role extends outside the credit union to his involvement with a group of community organizations that emphasize programs benefiting local youths. He is president of the Fitchburg-based Montachusett Opportunity Council Board, an anti-poverty agency serving 36 area communities. The agency sponsors child care and head start programs in Leominster, Fitchburg, Gardner and Winchendon.

He serves on the North Central Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board, which sponsors summer job programs for at-risk teens. The credit union hires two youths every summer from the program, along with seven or eight interns from its branches at Clinton High School and Wachusett Regional High School.

O’Connor also serves on the board of the Twin Cities Community Development Corp. of Fitchburg & Leominster, which sponsors first-time homebuyers workshops, affordable housing and foreclosure prevention programs.

“I’m just thrilled to work in a local institution in Leominster where I live and raise my family,” O’Connor said. “The best part of the job is taking care of the members and working with the staff to help out members with their financial needs. The credit union has given me an opportunity to get involved with a lot of local things. It’s been a great experience.”

D. Oscar O’Connor

by Steve Adams time to read: 2 min
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