Overview

Overview

ANHD’s Equitable Reinvestment Committee (ERC) is a member-led coalition that believes racial and economic justice and equity must be central to our financial system. This committee is dedicated to holding financial institutions accountable for the wealth and racial inequities they helped create and continue to perpetuate through practices and policies of wealth extraction, exploitation, and displacement. Our committee members serve and are led by those who are directly impacted by this unjust system.

Through this work, we seek:

  • An increase in meaningful, responsive reinvestment
  • An end to extractive policies and displacement financing
  • To advance accountability and transparency

See ERC’s full mission and vision

Current Campaigns

Current Campaigns

Increase Access to Banks and Banking

We are working to increase access to banks and banking products, with a focus on branch closures and lack of branches which impact individuals, small businesses, and the community development corporations (CDCs) and community organizations serving the areas banks have abandoned and ignored.

New York City lost over 100 branches in 2020 and more closures are coming.

 

Ensure Lenders Commit and Adhere to Responsible Multifamily Lending

We are working to stop the financing of predatory equity and bad-acting landlords and support the transfer of distressed properties to mission-driven developers and/or tenant control.

ANHD developed a set of Responsible Multifamily Lending Best Practices. This includes responsible underwriting, proper vetting of landlords, and staffing that works with tenants and the landlord to address issues as they arise after the loan is made.

New York Community Bank and Signature bank publicly adopted ANHD’s best practices. New York State’s Department of Financial Services issued similar multifamily guidance for all state-chartered banks to follow. 

We are now working to enforce these practices and improve upon them to better protect tenants and preserve affordable housing.

 

Utilize, Preserve, and Strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)

ANHD is active in national advocacy to reform the CRA, a civil-rights anti-redlining law to reflect our principles. We also participate in CRA advocacy locally to engage with banks, especially around times of mergers, acquisitions, and branch closures.

See ANHD’s CRA Advocacy page to learn about our work to preserve and strengthen the CRA. ANHD sits on four bank community advisory boards (Santander, Valley, Sterling, NYCB) and regularly meets with many others.

ANHD members routinely engage with banks at the time of mergers, acquisitions, and branch closures - i.e. when the CRA must be taken into account.

Get Involved

Get Involved

There are many ways to get involved:

  • Join ERC and participate in our regular meetings and subcommittees
  • Tenants, tenant organizers, and advocates can participate in regular tenant roundtables with Signature and New York Community Bank
  • Participate in meetings with banks to increase their responsiveness to New York City communities in all areas of CRA: branches, banking products, loans to buy or keep a home, loans to start and maintain a small business, and loans and investments that support affordable housing, quality jobs, and community services

For more information, contact Will Depoo.

Our Members

Our Members