Communities of Color: The Unbanked and Underbanked

An attentive audience listens as the panelists discuss the problems of exclusion at the Communities of Color forum.  Photo: Urban News
An attentive audience listens as the panelists discuss the problems of exclusion at the Communities of Color forum.
Photo: Urban News

The YMI hosted a Town Hall Forum, “Communities of Color,” on Thursday, April 30, 2015 to focus attention on exclusionary housing and North Carolina’s Extra-Territorial Jurisdictions (ETJs)—unbounded lands and communities that are not included in the state’s towns and municipalities.

Key to the discussion was The State of Exclusion, a report that grew out of “The Inclusion Project” created by UNC Chapel Hill’s Civil Rights Center. The report offers a statewide perspective on areas where ETJs exist and where many residents—“unbanked” or “underbanked”—lack access to credit and other banking services.

The forum was moderated by Dr. Darin Waters, Assistant Professor of History at UNC Asheville, who is widely recognized as an expert on the history of African Americans in WNC, and the long-term, and ongoing, effects of discrimination. Dr. Waters explained that the forum “offered the community the opportunity to assess the impact that current public policy decisions regarding housing have” and how those decisions, “either negatively or positively, affected minority communities, both locally and statewide.”

Such open discussions allow for further empirical data to be gathered and presented. “Hearing this important information,” Waters said, “offers us the opportunity to reimagine how housing policies are developed in the future.”

Forum panelists (L-R) Mark Dorosin, David Nash,  Dr. Dwight Mullen, Rodrick Banks, and  Dr. Gwendolyn Whitfield.  Photo: Urban News
Forum panelists (L-R) Mark Dorosin, David Nash,
Dr. Dwight Mullen, Rodrick Banks, and
Dr. Gwendolyn Whitfield. Photo: Urban News

Forum panelists included UNC Asheville professors Dr. Dwight Mullen and Dr. Gwendolyn Whitfield; Mark Dorosin, Managing Attorney at UNC Chapel Hill’s Civil Rights Center; David Nash, COO of the Asheville Housing Authority (HACA); and Rodrick Banks, Vice President of Community Development at Wells Fargo Bank.

As described in The State of Exclusion, civil rights are wrongly perceived as individual rights and racial discrimination as a personal experience. In fact, the report states, “housing discrimination operates at a neighborhood level” and discrimination against an individual based on race both reflects and perpetuates community-wide bias.

For example, in coastal Brunswick County, several census blocks in the Royal Oak community have a population that is more than 75% African American. Royal Oak houses the county’s animal shelter, waste transfer station, sewage treatment plant, and several landfills. The county provides water and sewer service to the animal shelter, but not to black residents. A similar pattern can be discerned elsewhere in the state, and across the country.

Asheville’s own historic African American neighborhoods, such as East End/Valley Street, reflected centuries of segregation and discrimination in housing. Yet East End was a strong, thriving community until it was decimated by the 1960s-’70s era of “Urban Renewal—sardonically called “Urban Removal” by many former residents. The panel presented information about ETJs within the City of Asheville and Buncombe County as well as the federally funded Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) recently adopted by Asheville Housing Authority.

“So much is connected to where we live,” said Dr. Waters. “A 2011 report about ongoing discriminatory housing practices noted that, ‘On every measure of well-being and opportunity, the foundation is where you live. Cancer rates, asthma rates, infant mortality, unemployment, education, access to fresh food, access to parks, whether or not the city repairs the roads in your neighborhood,’ are all tied to where people live.”

In addition, geographical communities and cultural groups who are unbanked and underbanked make up a prime target for the $65-billion-dollar industry of subprime lenders, check cashing outlets, and other businesses that prey on those who do not participate in the economic mainstream. Because many African Americans lack confidence in or are not knowledgeable about mainstream banking products, they are easily victimized by predatory lenders, according to the FDIC 2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked.

Research shows that low-income families want to save money, and if offered bank accounts are more likely to make positive gains both in savings and in establishing a positive net worth. The FDIC survey cited a need for financial institutions to take more proactive measures to educate consumers about financial products and services in the expectation that more informed consumers would be better able to participate in the financial mainstream.

Mr. Banks, of Wells Fargo Bank, is deeply aware of the disparities in services and opportunities available to white versus black communities. “Investing in our communities is one of the most important things we can do as a company,” he said. “At Wells Fargo, we believe that we’re responsible for promoting the long-term economic prosperity and quality of life for everyone in our communities. If they prosper, so do we.”

Another topic, address by Drs. Mullen and Whitfield, was the many social, political, and economic impacts that result from exclusionary housing. According to Dr. Mullen, “For much of the past, disparate outcomes by race, sex, and economic status were required by formal policies implemented by local, state, federal and private sector institutions”—including government and bank-led redlining of entire communities.

After the Supreme Court ruled such redlining unconstitutional, restrictive covenants were imposed by neighborhood associations and inserted into individual property deeds, prohibiting, sometimes in perpetuity, the sale of the property to minorities. The effects of those restrictions are still felt nationwide in neighborhoods that remain overwhelmingly segregated by race.

The YMI Cultural Center plans to work with community partners such as OnTrack Financial, which offers credit counseling and financial education including home-ownership classes, to host financial literacy programs, credit repair, and workshops to help those who are excluded obtain free, no-minimum-balance or low-minimum-balance checking accounts.

These programs will complement UNC Asheville’s IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program, which offers free tax preparation during tax season to those who make $53,000 or less. The program offers tax assistance at the Pack Library and the YMI Cultural Center.

Other community sponsors of the forum, in addition to Wells Fargo, were Mission Health, UNC Asheville, OnTrack Financial, Self-Help Credit Union, and the Asheville Chapter of the Links, Incorporated.