Eugene Foley is president and CEO of the Harvard University Credit Union, based in Cambridge.
Last week, National Credit Union Administration board member Deborah Matz made a stop in Boston as part of her national campaign to advocate for greater credit union involvement in the NeighborWorks initiative. The NeighborWorks campaign brings the government and private sector together with community-based organizations to provide homeownership for families that would not otherwise have this opportunity. It is the largest initiative of its kind in the country. This joint effort was formed as part of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., which Congress established in 1978 to help revitalize underserved communities. Credit unions in Boston, Brockton, Fitchburg, Lowell, Manchester, N.H., and other New England areas have been building partnerships with local employers and community groups to work toward improving their neighborhoods.
Specifically, the NeighborWorks campaign asks credit unions to enhance homeownership opportunities for the underserved by providing pre-purchase education, innovative mortgage products and early intervention delinquency counseling as part of a comprehensive system geared toward creating successful homeowners. The initiative operates under the principle that providing homeownership for more residents in a community will, in turn, allow new homeowners take charge and work toward improving the lives and living conditions for all of their neighbors. With greater community involvement and investment, it’s more likely that schools, recreational facilities and local services will improve.
Credit Unions and NeighborWorks organizations are natural partners. Both are not-for-profit, are governed by volunteer boards of directors and offer financial education, products and services to defined populations. In 2002, the NCUA launched its Access Across America campaign, targeting the NeighborWorks initiative as one of the important programs for credit unions to consider working with in order to fulfill their mission of serving the underserved. The NCUA chairman at that time, Dennis Dollar, said, “I am convinced that many credit unions could reach out and even more dramatically impact their communities than they already do now by working more closely with community-based, not-for-profit organizations wherever appropriate.” This message has become the foundation of the national campaign board member Matz has built to maximize the role credit unions play in especially helping low- to moderate-income families, single mothers and minorities achieve homeownership.
The workshop Matz presented last week was sponsored by the NCUA, along with the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island credit union leagues, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions and the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. The combined involvement of the national credit union regulator with these large and influential trade organizations provides evidence that the NeighborWorks initiative has taken center stage in the mission of our country’s credit unions to significantly improve the neighborhoods in which they operate. As many lenders are acquired or move out of state, the need for locally controlled mortgage providers working toward neighborhood reinvestment has become more acute.
While the workshop was filled with success stories from credit unions and community groups that have already formed vital strategic alliances, it was also a call for more credit unions to become involved in the effort to revitalize older, distressed urban neighborhoods and rural communities. This is a difficult challenge, because credit unions do not have the resources to solve problems by throwing money at them. The solutions credit unions bring to their communities will reflect the solutions these communities bring to themselves, based on hard work and ingenuity. While some problems are easily solved if you are rich, all it takes to raise a barn is some good neighbors.
