The Bronx, NY (April 3, 2025) |
Today the Bronx celebrates the historic ribbon-cutting of the first satellite branch of the Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union, an expansion project of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union in partnership with the Bronx Financial Access
Coalition. The dedication and hard work of four long-standing Bronx community housing organizations, the reinvestment commitment of Webster Bank, and the expansive vision and steady diligence of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union together are restoring quality and convenient banking services to the South Bronx.
Not many generations ago, the neighborhoods of Longwood, Morrisania, Crotona Park East, Hunts Point, Melrose and Mott Haven were home to dozens of banks and credit unions as well as a thriving multi-ethnic music scene and some of the most racially integrated public schools in the nation. Government-sanctioned redlining and disinvestment by the banking, insurance and real estate industries, however, set up a self-fulfilling prophecy of decline and devastation, not just in the fires and abandonment, but also the closure of local bank branches. While community residents led the rebuilding efforts in the Bronx, the borough is still home to the lowest concentration of branches of any county in the state, where check cashers and pawn shops have filled the void – a symbol of the banking apartheid system in our nation.
The new credit union satellite branch at 941 Intervale Ave builds on the tradition of community residents taking the lead in investing in their neighborhoods in ways that keep people in place while building wealth and ownership by offering affordable and quality financial services to people who are often targeted for extractive financial products. The Bronx Financial Access Coalition and the Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union together counter the two-tiered landscape with a joint mantra emblazoned on their canvas tote bags: “Build wealth. Not debt.”
“We are excited to celebrate the opening of the Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union satellite branch, thanks to our partnership with the Bronx Financial Access Coalition,” says Aissatou Barry-Fall, President & CEO of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union. “With this new location, we are expanding our footprint and now can continue to offer quality, affordable financial products and services to a community that is underserved. The credit union is dedicated to supporting the area’s growth and prosperity. We feel strongly about ‘Affordable Financial Services’ as a right, not a privilege!”
The Bronx Financial Access Coalition includes longtime neighborhood housing organizations Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP), We Stay / Nos Quedamos, and the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDco). These groups came together while organizing against bank branch closures between 2019 and 2021 and formed a coalition to address the harm caused to the community. When they met with representatives of Sterling Bank regarding the closure of their branch on East 149th Street, they found a willing partner who was in the process of merging with Connecticut-based Webster Bank. Sterling itself had acquired Astoria Bank in 2017, and the new larger merged institution – Webster Bank – has been funding the Coalition’s work since 2022.
"During and in the wake of COVID, when bank branches were closing in our community, we saw a critical need emerge—one that traditional banking was failing to meet. In response, our coalition galvanized, advocating for funding and launching a capital campaign that began with a mobile bank in partnership with the Lower Eastside People's Credit Union and with seed funding from Webster Bank,” says Jessica Clemente, CEO of Nos Quedamos. “This grand opening of the Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union is a bold step forward in community-led banking, education, and empowerment. We are not just creating a new financial institution; we are reclaiming our right to accessible, equitable banking—a right long denied to communities that have been historically redlined and disinvested. Community-led solutions have always been at the forefront of our revitalization, and they will continue to guide our journey toward economic justice."
“Webster is committed to finding innovative solutions and collaborating with our partners to create economic vitality in our communities. We’re proud to be the premier bank sponsor of the Bronx Financial Access Coalition, supporting their work with the Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union to increase access to banking services,” says Marissa Weidner, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer of Webster Bank.
“Webster Bank has been an absolutely vital funder and thought partner in expanding financial access and education in the Bronx, demonstrating a true commitment to reinvesting in our communities, not extracting from them. On behalf of the Bronx Financial Access Coalition, we applaud you and celebrate today with you!" says Kerry A. McLean, WHEDco's Vice President of Community Development.
Even with the new brick and mortar branch open, the mobile branch van is still able to come to neighborhoods throughout the Bronx. Organizations can become partner groups and request the mobile branch by visiting the coalition’s website. Community residents can sign up to join the credit union online or come visit the branch Monday through Friday, 9AM to 4PM.
“Banking and wealth management are not privileges reserved for the top 10% – they are essential tools that every community deserves access to. It has been an incredible experience to visit many locations across the Bronx and to work alongside dedicated members and partners, where great things are happening every day. The stories of resilience, determination, and hope inspire me,” says Jumelia Abrahamson of University Neighborhood Housing Program and a board member of the credit union since 2021. “People are always excited and curious about the green van where banking can happen. But the intersection of financial literacy and solid products is where the real magic is. The Bronx Financial Access Coalition is making it easier for low-income and immigrant families to avoid check cashing and high maintenance fees, invites families to apply for credit and improve their score no matter their income or immigration status, and encourages wealth building by helping residents buy a home or start a business with quality products and services. We will continue to meet people where they live and work, and through the wide array of products that promote credit-building and wealth creation, the economy will be re-shaped one member at a time. The Bronx deserves a future of stability and opportunity and this Financial Literacy Month, we are excited to celebrate this milestone together.”
At a time when consumer and banking protections are being gutted and immigrants being targeted by the federal government, innovative grassroots initiatives to expand not just financial access but cooperative enterprises are needed more than ever. Inspired by the work of past Bronx community credit union endeavors including Bethex, Northwest Bronx Coalition and Mid Bronx Desperadoes which, like Lower East Side People’s, came about in the 1980s, the current organizers looked for an established partner instead of facing the many hurdles of creating a new credit union from scratch. LES People’s has in fact absorbed a number of older credit unions during its own history, including Union Settlement Credit Union to expand into East
Harlem in 2014. An expansion into Staten Island in 2017 created the North Shore People’s branch. Before opening the new branch on Intervale Ave, Lower East Side People’s partnered with the Bronx Financial Access Coalition to launch the Bronx People’s Mobile Branch in 2022, using the credit union’s van to visit neighborhoods where bank and credit union branches are scarce commodities.
“Community development financial institutions like Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union are designed to meet the needs of historically redlined communities, with affordable and convenient products that build wealth and community ownership,” says Jorge Luis Vasquez, Jr. Board Chair of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union. “We don’t extract resources or perpetuate poverty.”
In a pre-pandemic survey of hundreds of Bronx community members, WHEDco found that about one out of every four respondents did not have a U.S. bank account and more than forty percent of respondents said they have zero dollars saved. Many of those surveyed by WHEDco who are banked said they can’t maintain the minimum balance required and do not have a bank branch in their neighborhood, among other challenges cited.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the opening of the Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union’s first physical branch, a true testament to the power of community collaboration and reinvestment,” says Davon Russell, WHEDco’s President. “This historic partnership with our Bronx Financial Access Coalition co-founders and the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union, is not just the opening of a branch—it is the restoration of financial dignity and community ownership in the South Bronx. This credit union represents a new chapter, a new opportunity, for residents, workers and small businesses to access affordable, quality, cooperative financial services to build wealth.”
The realities of both redlining and financial deregulation created this landscape, as well as the community organizing that came in response. Much of the community work over the past five decades has rightly focused on the immediate core need of housing, but the loss of housing in the Bronx was deeply entangled with disinvestment by banks, insurance companies and
adequate place management by government services, typically justified through racialized stereotypes that devalued places where people of color lived. The result were epidemics of fire, abandonment and addiction that were never treated as public health crises but rather ignored or criminalized in policies of “benign neglect” and “planned shrinkage.” These four organizations of the Bronx Financial Access Coalition have all played huge roles in rebuilding the Bronx over the past half-century. They know that neighborhood residents are the experts on community needs and finding a bank partner who shares that belief was a key victory on this journey.
“Understanding that the closing of banks due to redlining in our South Bronx communities now brings us full circle. Together, all of our organizations are making this impossibility a possibility here at 941 Intervale Avenue,” says Anna Vincenty of We Stay/Nos Quedamos which has been fighting displacement since challenging the Melrose Urban Renewal plan in 1992 with their own Melrose Commons community plan. Vincenty grew up on Stebbins Ave just a couple blocks from the new credit union branch and attended nearby P.S. 99 while her parents were small business owners in the neighborhood going back to the 1950s. “I went into banking until the banks started to merge and close their branches,” says Vincenty, who then went on to work for Congressman Serrano before joining Nos Quedamos.
A community development credit union like Bronx People’s offers neighborhood residents membership in a cooperative, affordable products and services that are designed to meet the needs of people living in historically redlined neighborhoods where any fees and interest are kept to a minimum. Products like free checking accounts, credit builder loans, fee-free ATMs in most McDonald’s restaurants, deep discounts on CitiBike and an open field of membership for low-income New York City residents make the credit union unique and important to a place like the Bronx, the county with the fewest bank branches and the most check cashers and pawnshops per household in the state, and possibly the country. The coalition and credit union’s strategy is to restore and build trust with community residents who have had bad experiences with banks, or are tired of paying high fees to banks or check cashers.
“As a native of the South Bronx, born and raised on Fox Street and Intervale Avenue, to see The Bronx People’s Federal Credit Union is special,” says Sonya Ferguson, a longtime neighborhood resident and president of the Banana Kelly Block Association. Ferguson joined as a member of the credit union when the mobile branch launched in 2022 and supports Banana Kelly
Community Improvement Association and the Bronx Financial Access Coalition with outreach in the neighborhood. “Bringing back businesses like banking is the new growth and thriving this community needs. The South Bronx is making a comeback!”
The new branch is located in a building recently renovated by Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association which the city had converted into a shelter through the controversial “cluster site” program. Grassroots organizing helped get this and other similar buildings out of the program and into community ownership. “We are excited to have the credit union as a tenant in this building, knowing how important this location is to our larger neighborhood,” says Hope Burgess, the President & CEO of Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Inc. “I encourage more organizations to join as partners to the credit union and talk to your staff, members and clients about building credit, banking services and taking control of your finances. I signed up as a member myself because I have seen firsthand the barriers and struggles our residents face from the lack of access to financial institutions.”
One of the earlier organizing victories that has made this work possible was the passage of the federal Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. Challenges to bank mergers and openings using CRA helped bring reinvestment dollars into the Bronx and helped launch a number of credit unions including Lower East Side People’s. The regulations under this federal law were revised and strengthened in 2023 by all three federal banking regulators, but were blocked by the banking lobby in a Texas district federal court last year.
The groups are asking state lawmakers to counteract this trend by supporting policies that protect lower income New Yorkers while advancing economic democracy including the End Loan Sharking Act, the New York Public Banking Act, fixing the State Community Development Financial Institution Fund, and establishing a worker-owner center for New York. They are also opposing an “earned wage access” bill that would carve a loophole in our state usury laws for apps that offer the tech industry’s version of payday lending.
“Now more than ever, our state lawmakers need to step up protections for everyday working-class New Yorkers and ensure that extractive, predatory products are not welcome in New York, including from the financial tech companies who want a carve out from our state criminal usury law,” says Gregory Jost, Policy and Campaigns Advisor for Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association and who teaches about the Bronx, redlining and community organizing at Fordham University. “Rather, they should pass legislation that empowers community development financial institutions and other grassroots and cooperative ownership models as a way to bolster against the attacks happening at the federal level.”