NEDAP Resources for Action

How-To and Frequently Asked Questions

The NEDAP How-To page is intended to help New York groups think through issues they are facing in their communities, and provide resources and tools for action.  Email us if you have a question to add, or would like to request technical assistance for your community group; you can also visit the NEDAP Training and Technical Assistance page for more information. 

1. How do I find bank branch information for my neighborhood?

2. How can I tell who regulates the banks in my community?

3. Where can I go to see if a mortgage lender or broker is licensed, or file a complaint?

4. Where can I get information on the income and race of people in my neighborhood?

5. What is HMDA? What is CRA?

6. What is "federal preemption"?  How does it affect communities?

7. Who are my elected representatives?  What are they up to?

8. Does NEDAP make maps for everyone? How can I make my own maps?

9. Where does NEDAP get its data from? What are good research resources?

1. How do I find bank branch information for my neighborhood?

If you want to see what banks have branches in your neighborhood, or get a list of banks in a given area, visit the FDIC website (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). The information is available free and downloadable, in the Summary of Deposits section.  Scroll down the page and click on "Download."  You can choose the geographic area (New York State), and which variables to include (address, branch name, etc).  This file can then be downloaded and opened in Excel.  There you can sort by county, and narrow down the results to your neighborhood. That's what NEDAP uses when we make our bank branches maps!

Another feature of the FDIC site, Bank Find, allows you to search for specific banks.  You can enter an address, or the name of a particular bank you're looking for.  It helps to search broadly first (enter your zip code, for example), and then narrow down once you have the results.  Although this information is not downloadable, you can still copy and paste it from the website into an Excel spreadsheet.

 

2. How can I tell who regulates the banks in my community?

The Bank Find feature on the FDIC website allows you to see which is the primary federal regulator for a particular bank.  Enter the name of the bank in the "Name" field, and scroll through the results until you see "The primary regulator is..."  Try to enter the full name of the bank, since large banks may have a number of similarly-named subsidiary banks.  Check out Question #5 below for more information on the different federal regulators, and what types of financial institutions they regulate.

 

3. Where can I go to see if a mortgage lender or broker is licensed, or file a complaint?

To check and see if particular real estate businesses or professionals are licenses, or to file a complaint against them, you have to contact the public agency that issues the licenses.  See the list below for details.

• Mortgage Lender or Broker: NYS Banking Department (Spanish/English)

1-877-BANK-NYS or 212-709-5470, or online: licenses

• Home Improvement Contractor: NYC Department of Consumer Affairs

212-487-4201 or 311, or online: licenses

• Real Estate Attorney: NYS Supreme Court - Disciplinary Committee

Manhattan and the Bronx: 212-401-0800

Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island: 718-923-6300

• Real Estate Inspector, Appraiser, Agent, or Broker: NY Department of State

Division of Licensing Services: 212-417-5790, or online: licenses and complaint form (pdf)

• Engineer: NYS Education Department, Office of the Professions

1-800-442-8106 or 518-474-3817, or online: licenses and complaints

• Property Insurance Company, Title Insurer: NYS Insurance Department

1-800-342-3736 or 212-480-6400, or online: licenses and complaints

Title Bureau: 212-480-5501

4. Where can I get information on the income and race of people in my neighborhood?

Demographic information (such as income and race), housing information, and other data about a specific geographic area is collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.   You can find information at the state, county, zip code, and census tract levels on its website, American Factfinder. 

To get a snapshot of information about your community, enter your zip code in the Fact Sheet box on the main page.  For detailed information, explore the options on the blue panel on the left of the main page.  Be prepared to spend some time looking through the site and trying different search options.  UCLA has a great online tutorial for navigating the American Factfinder website.  Its step-by-step guide walks you through searching for information and creating custom data files.  If you want to download information for many geographic areas at once, go to the Download Center and follow the steps.  To open the data in Excel, you'll need to follow these instructions.

While the Census is the usual go-to source for demographic information, there are many other useful and reliable resources that are more specific to New York City.  Below is a partial list:

• NYC Department of City Planning: provides community district profiles, block and lot information, demographic information.

• FFIEC: allows you to generate detailed and easy-to-read charts (downloadable in pdf format) by county, MSA, and census tract level.  There are separate reports for population, housing, demographics, and income.

• NYU Furman Center - NYCHANIS: includes housing data, demographic info, and mapping. You have to create an account, but that's free.  More info about NYCHANIS can be found under Question #7 below.

• Infoshare: offers census data specific to NYS and NYC.  Again, you need to create a free account to use the site.

5. What is HMDA? What is CRA?

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) of 1975 requires all lenders of a certain size to annually report information for all home mortgages applications they receive.  Certain demographic information is reported for each application, including the race and gender of the borrower, as well as the race and income characteristics of the neighborhood where the property is located. HMDA data enables community advocates to see where particular banks are (or not) making loans, and helps bring to light discriminatory lending practices. [See NEDAP's latest HMDA report] 

As of 2004, the lenders must also report the "rate spread" of the loan.   We use this new rate spread field to make our "high-cost" or "subprime" loan maps. The FFIEC releases aggregate HMDA data (data from all the reporting lenders together) every year in the Fall; data for an individual lending institution is ready earlier, in the Spring.  See Question #9 below for more info on obtaining HMDA data. Also refer to the FFIEC's more detailed Frequently Asked HMDA Questions (pdf) page.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is a 1977 federal law that requires depository banks to meet the credit needs of their entire service area, including low and moderate income neighborhoods.  Denying loans and services to neighborhoods based on their income composition is a practice known as "redlining."  The law was intended to increase investment and financial services in neighborhoods historically underserved by banks. 

To enforce CRA, four federal banking agenices conduct periodic "exams" of banks' lending, services, and investments.  The examiners then give the bank one of four ratings: Outstanding, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement, or Substantial Noncompliance.  Ratings as well as the agencies' performance evaluations are public information, and can be found at the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council website.

When banks are being examined, the public has an opportunity to comment on the bank's community reinvestment record - how well they are meeting a particular community's needs. While the regulatory agencies often work together to conduct "concurrent exams," each bank has a "primary" regulator. The regulatory agencies are described below:

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): regulates state banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System.  While all bank deposits are insured by the FDIC, not all banks are primarily regulated by this agency.  Local examples of banks regulated by the FDIC include Ridgewood Savings Bank, Amalgamated Bank, and North Fork Bank.

• Federal Reserve Board (FRB or "the Fed"): regulates all U.S. bank holding companies, state-chartered banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System, and some operations of foreign banks.  Banks may be a member of the FRB, but another agency may be the primary regulator.  Local examples of banks regulated by the FRB include Banco Popular and Bank of New York.

• Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC): regulates nationally-chartered banks. Anything with NA or NB (National Association or National Bank) in its title is regulated by the OCC.  Since 2004, banks with a national charter have federal preemption (what's that?), leading many large New York state-chartered banks to change their charter to a national one.  Examples of banks regulated by the OCC include JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

• Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS): regulates federal "thrifts," also known as savings and loans.  Anything with FSB in its title, or Federal Savings Bank, is regulated by the OTS.  Examples of OTS-regulated banks include Lehman Brothers Bank, Carver Federal Savings Bank and the biggest thrift of them all: Washington Mutual!

• NY State Banking Department (NYSBD): at times regulates banks in conjuction with the above federal regulators.

To figure out which agency regulates a particular bank, see Question #2 above.   Visit the website of each regulator to see which banks are currently up for examination.

6. What is "federal preemption"?  How does it affect communities?

In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates national banks, ruled that national banks are exempt from state consumer protection laws.  That means that even if a state passes laws regulating certain practices, a national bank would not be required to follow those laws.  National banks are therefore only governed by federal law, which may not be as strict as state laws. 

For example, New York has a usury cap of 25% for small loans - so your interest rate can't be more than 25%. However, because of federal preemption, nationally-chartered banks can get around the state cap and charge a higher interest rate! Since New York's consumer protection laws are generally stronger than the federal ones, federal preemption limits our state's ability to protect its residents from abusive or discriminatory lending practices.  Lured by preemption, New York’s largest state-chartered banks, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase, gave up their state charters for national ones within months of the OCC’s ruling. 

New York State, however, continues to regulate most mortgage lending institutions and mortgage brokers.  In fact, more than 75% of all mortgage lenders fall within the state’s jurisdiction.  Despite federal preemption, many believe that it is still important for states to pursue strong consumer-protection legislation to serve as a model for best practices. As the country’s banking center, New York can be a leader for states around the country on this issue.

Check out NEDAP's latest report on Tax Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs) to see how federal preemption plays out in a specific case - allowing thousands of New Yorkers to be gouged by abusive financial products.

Visit the Center for Responsible Lending's website to learn more about how federal preemption undermines advocacy efforts to stem predatory lending practices.

7. Who are my elected representatives?  What are they up to?

To find out who are your local, state, and national representatives, visit the handy website of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), under the Who Represents me? section.

To see which elected representatives sit on the legislative committees most relevant to the financial services field, such as Banks or Consumer Affairs, visit the NYS Assembly, NYS Senate, and NYC Council committee websites.  Most of the legislation which affects economic justice issues are introduced by members of these committees.   Moreover, bills that do get introduced most likely must pass through these committees before they reach the floor of the Assembly, Senate, or City Council for a full vote. 

To get more information about specific legislation, visit the NYS Assembly Bill Search page and search by keyword or bill number, if you already know it.  The keyword search is particularly useful because it allows you to see all the bills that have to do with a certain topic, such as "mortgage," "debt collection," or "garden." 

Once you do your search, you can click on an individual bill to see the full text of the bill, who the sponsors and co-sponsors are, and the status of the bill (if it's still in a particular committee, for example).

A bill needs to be passed by both the NYS Assembly and the NYS Senate to make it to the Governor's desk - that's why you might find two bills with different numbers, but with the same language. An "A" in front of the bill number (A01794, for example) indicates that bill was introduced in the Assembly; an "S" in front of the bill number (S03250, for example) indicates a bill introduced in the Senate.  These complementary bills are referred to as "same as" bills. If there is no partner bill, there is "no same as."

A similar website exists to search through federal legislation, called Thomas (after Thomas Jefferson).  This site allows you to search by keyword and bill number, as well as by the Representative or Senator's name.

OpenSecrets.org is a website that tracks campaign contributions made to elected representatives.  It includes the amounts donated as well as which industries are making contributions.

8. Does NEDAP make maps for everyone? How can I make my own maps?

NEDAP has worked with many community-based organizations on a variety of mapping projects.  Depending on the organization's budget and mapping needs, NEDAP typically charges a fee for its mapping services, as it takes a great deal of time and effort to gather data and develop maps.  Please contact us if your organization is interested in pursuing a mapping project.

If you would like to make your own maps, with data from public sources such as the U.S. Census, there are a number of websites that allow you to do so without buying expensive software or having mapping expertise.  The Furman Center at NYU has a free website called NYCHANIS which allows you to map housing and demographic data for New York City.  You have to create an account to use the site, but that is free.

KnowledgePlex's Dataplace is another free interactive website that allows you to map census as well as mortgage lending data for anywhere in the country. You need to set up a free account in order to save maps that you've made.  Dataplace also enables you to make graphs and charts of census information.  

OasisNYC is a detailed mapping site that allows you to explore land use data for NYC.  You can select layers of information such as community gardens, cemeteries, subway stations, and basketball courts.  Symbols will then appear on the map, representing each of these sets of information. This website is free, and does not require a user account.

The University Neighborhood Housing Program has a great online resource called the Community Resource Guide.  There you will find a collection of pre-made maps specific to NYC, including downloadable census tract, community distict, and political boundary maps.

The NYC Department of City Planning's City of Neighborhoods page has pre-made maps of the boroughs and neighborhoods.  The U.S. Census American FactFinder reference maps page is also a useful resource for pre-made maps by census tract, congressional district, and other geographies.

If you know of other useful mapping sites, please let us know!

9. Where does NEDAP get its data from?  What are good research resources?

NEDAP gets data from a variety of sources for our maps, alerts, fact sheets, curriculum and reports - check out the publications page for examples of how we use this data.  Outlined below is a list of a few of our sources, which you can also access for your community projects:

• Mortgage lending patterns:  We use Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data to create maps showing mortgage lending patterns in New York City. See Question #4 above for more info about HMDA. The maps can be specific to one lender, or show lending patterns for all lenders. You can access free reports for particular areas or specific banking institutions from the FFIEC website. In the lefthand column, click on "Aggregate Report" or "Disclosure Report." For the first time, the raw HMDA data is available online for free download!

• Tax Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs):  To document and map the prevalence of RALs, we use the Internal Revenue Service's SPEC database. 

• Demographics:  We use U.S. Census data for demographic information in all of our reports and mapping. Please refer to Question #3 above for more information about how to access census information.

• Foreclosure actions:   We purchase information about foreclosure actions in NYC - called lis pendens data - from a private company called Profiles Publications, one of many vendors that collect this data.  While lis pendens data is public information, private companies are the only source for NYC data that is compiled and digitized. 

• Location of financial service outlets:  The process for finding bank and credit union branch location information is described in Question #1 above.  For our Rent-A-Center maps, we went to the RAC website and cut and pasted the locations into an Excel spreadsheet.  For the location of check cashers and money transmitters, we have to submit a request using the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) to the NYS Banking Department Public Information Officer.  For pawnshops, we submit a FOIL request to the Public Information Officer at the Department of Consumer Affairs. These requests must be submitted every year in order to receive the most up-to-date information.  The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has a Freedom of Information Service Center, which generates request letters for you! The website walks you through both FOIL request, which go to state agencies, and FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, which apply to federal agencies.

• Mapping files:  In order to make maps, we need GIS (Geographic Information Systems) "shape files" which contain the underlying map shapes for New York.  These files can be downloaded from the US Census Bureau, NYS GIS Clearinghouse or the NYC Planning Department. Universities or public agencies sometimes have the files free and available for download.

• Property searches:  To find more information about an individual property in New York City, you can visit the ACRIS website, which is the online registry of the city.  Here you will find copies of deeds, mortgages, liens, and other relevant documents recorded by the city.  The online records date back to 1966. Searching through ACRIS may be time-consuming, but it is the only real way to investigate issues such as property-flipping. Note that records are NOT available for properties located in Staten Island!

• Corporate research - banks:  The National Information Center is a data repository from the Federal Reserve System.  This detailed website provides information about banks and other financial entities that are overseen by the FRS.  Start with the "Institution Search" and go from there.

• Other issues:  Since not all information can be quantified, and important information is often not captured in databases or data in general, we use a variety of other sources in our work including surveys, interviews, and testimonials, as well as the general life experience and knowledge of the community groups we work with.