NEDAP News | Vol. 2 Issue 10 | October 2007

Welcome to the October 2007 edition of NEDAP News

• NEDAP Joins Fair Lending Fight in California
• NEDAP Speaks Out on Policies to End Predatory Mortgage Lending
• Community Training and Advocacy Highlights

NEDAP Joins Fair Lending Fight in California

On October 27, NEDAP co-director Mark Winston Griffith traveled to Santa Barbara, California to meet with senior management of Santa Barbara Bank and Trust (SBBT), one of the country's largest issuers of tax refund anticipation loans (RALs).  At the meeting, organized by California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC), representatives of NEDAP, CRC, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, and Woodstock Institute pressed SBBT to stop making RALs, as part of our groups' ongoing campaign to end these abusive and usurious short-term loans.

NEDAP's research shows that RALs in NYC are overwhelmingly concentrated in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, sapping millions of dollars in wealth -- including from families' Earned Income Tax Credits -- each year.

NEDAP Speaks Out on Policies to Prevent Predatory Mortgage Lending

(photo: DMI and Lindsay Beyerstein) NEDAP's Sarah Ludwig at DMI forum

On October 11, NEDAP's executive director spoke out on the foreclosure crisis in New York, at a forum hosted by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, "Preventing Predatory Lending with Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson."  

NEDAP's director added to a lively exchange on a panel, deftly moderated by DMI's Andrea Batista Schlesinger, which also featured Minnesota AG Lori Swanson, NYS Banking Superintendent Richard Neiman and NYC Council Member James Sanders.

Community Training and Advocacy Highlights

In October, NEDAP:

• Organized a protest, in partnership with the NYC Immigrant Financial Justice Network and the NY Immigration Coalition, against the Department of Homeland Security's new "no-match" rule, which would harm workers whose employers receive Social Security no-match letters.  The protest was part of a national day of action, and received coverage in Telemundo, NY1 Noticias, El Diario/La Prensa, and Queens Chronicle.

• Made a panel presentation on the Community Reinvestment Act, and led a training on credit scores and foreclosures, at "The Community Reinvestment Act: Still Relevant at 30?," a day-long event sponsored by New York Law School's Justice Action Center.

• Spoke at the U.S. Treasury Department's Eastern Regional Conference on Reaching Unbanked People, on strategies to eliminate barriers that immigrants face in the financial services system.

• Conducted anti-predatory lending trainings at:

  • A Spanish-language town hall meeting in Bushwick, Brooklyn, organized in collaboration with the Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union and HPD;

  • A homebuyer workshop in Laurelton, Queens, organized by NYC Council Member James Sanders; and

  • A homebuyers seminar hosted by Margert Community Corp., in Far Rockaway, Queens.

• Led a community financial justice workshop for the Women in Prison Project, ReConnect, a leadership training program for women returning from jail or prison.

• Appeared in various media outlets, including:

• Yahoo! Finance, "Stacking the Deck Against Consumers"

• New York Times, "Study Finds Disparities in Mortgages By Race"

• Three New York Daily News articles:

  • "Albany is subpar on subprime"

  • "Immigrant groups boycott over transfer fees"

  • "Albany should get to work on the mortgage meltdown - now"

• El Diario/La Prensa, "Crisis de vivienda será crítica en Navidades"

• Bloomberg News, "Regulators Paved Way for Loan Abuses, Congress Hears"

• WNYC Morning Edition segment on New York's foreclosure crisis.

• WNBC.Com, "Black and White," by Gabe Pressman

• NBC News Channel 4 segment on the destabilizing impact of subprime loans and foreclosures on NYC neighborhoods.

• NY1's Pura Politica, in an interview about predatory lending and foreclosures in NYC.

• CNN en Español news segment about racial disparities in subprime mortgage lending.

• Queens Chronicle, "Foreclosure Seminar Helps Those Who Need it Most"

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