The Rundown

• ASI FCU has focused on helping lower-income members meettheir financial needs from its very beginning.
• Members have coped with a 'triple whammy': HurricaneKatrina, the Great Recession and the Deepwater Horizonexplosion.
• The credit union serves 80,000 members spread across SouthLouisiana, and in New Orleans fully half of those are Latino orVietnamese.

ASI Federal Credit Union became a low-income credit union beforethe low-income credit union designation, or even the NCUA,existed.

Chartered in 1961 to serve the blue collar shipbuilders and dockworkers at the Avondale Shipyard, Inc. (now owned by NorthrupGrumman), the now $293 million credit union has focused on helpinglower-income members meet their financial needs and advance theirfinancial lives from the very beginning.

“Working with lower-income members and the underserved is almostpart of our DNA as an organization,” explained Sarah Taylor,executive vice president with ASI.

But while working with the underserved has long been a core partof ASI's culture, Taylor acknowledged that at times since 2005, thecredit union has felt like it existed primarily to help its memberscope with, survive, recover from and flourish in spite of natural,economic and industrial disasters.

“[ASI CEO] Mignhon Tourne frequently calls it our triplewhammy,” Taylor said, referring to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, theGreat Recession that got underway in late 2008 and the DeepwaterHorizon explosion and severe oil spill of 2010. “They have been aseries of huge challenges for the credit union to help its membersovercome.”

The latest challenge, on the day of the interview, had been aburst pipe over the weekend that had left four inches in water onthe first floor of the CU's headquarters in Harahan, La.,temporarily exiling part of the credit union's headquarters staffto trailers and making those that remained on the second floordouble up to make more room for the displaced.

“We have gotten to where we feel we can take a lot of things instride,” Taylor said, laughing quietly.

If the last six years have felt like one long challenge withdifferent facets, it may be because ASI is very closely linked tomuch of the New Orleans and south Louisiana geography and many ofits people.

The credit union serves 80,000 members spread across SouthLouisiana, and in New Orleans, fully half of those members areLatino or Vietnamese, leading the CU to have one of its now 15branches dedicated to Spanish-speaking members and anotherdedicated to Vietnamese-speaking members. In addition, 60% of itsmembers live at or below the poverty line.

“The different parts of the triple whammy hurt our mostvulnerable members because they struck from so many differentdirections,” Taylor explained. First, lower income and blue collarworkers generally were among the most impacted by HurricaneKatrina. They were also among those who could not easily evacuatethe city ahead of the storm and those least likely to haveinsurance to cover their losses from it. They were also the onesmost likely to be hurt by the economic downturn and the Vietnamesemembers, in particular, have been hurt by the oil spill as they hadcarved out an economic niche in the seafood industry, Taylorexplained.

To help it organize, manage and fund the many recovery projectsthat it faced, ASI borrowed an idea from other CUs and launched anonprofit development organization, A Shared Initiative Inc. orASII. Launched in 2005 after the storm, the organization began withzero funds and only one manager, but has since grown to become thecommunity development arm of the CU.

At first, in the days immediately after the flooding receded,much of ASI and ASII's time was spent helping to rebuild orrefurbish housing in New Orleans, but as other nonprofits got upand running in the city, the CU stepped back from the actualrebuilding or remodeling projects and moved on to helping refinancethose efforts and supporting members as they moved through thatprocess, Taylor explained.

The CU found markedly different situations in different parts ofthe city and area, Taylor explained. In New Orleans' mostlyresidential Lower Ninth Ward, the CU found a lot of members withtheir former homes, whether rented or owned, razed to thefoundations and in need of complete rebuilding. While in the UpperNinth Ward, which is more commercial, there was a greater need forrefurbishing work and business loans to help reestablish lostcommercial efforts.

One of the things ASII did, as it grew to seven full-timeemployees and an operating budget of $300,000, was to refurbish andopen a two-story building in a mostly overlooked part of the UpperNinth Ward. The center, named after Clifford Rosenthal, CEO of theNational Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, leasesout space to other development nonprofit organizations, providesspace for neighborhood nonprofits and other groups and houses theASII staff.

ASI backed away from directly addressing housing needs, in part,because it became apparent that other needs became pressing aswell, Taylor explained.

First, financial education, particularly for members coming backand trying to maneuver their way through different programs andfind different sources of funding.

“We began to see a flood of online payday lending,” Taylor said.“So we had to educate members about the dangers of getting trappedin those loans and show them some alternatives.”

The alternatives included three different types of payday loanalternative, each tailored to help different members at differentlevels of involvement with the short-term, high-interest loans,Taylor said, remarking that Louisiana is one of the least regulatedstates when it comes to payday lending.

Another need that become clear was for micro lending to smallbusiness in the region, particularly to lower income, minority andother marginalized entrepreneurs. On its own and through partneringwith another nonprofit organization, ASII has booked 26 commercialmicro loans for almost $450,000, the CU reported.

For example, Kim Loan Cao, a Vietnamese immigrant and survivorof Katrina, received a $15,000 micro loan to help her expand herinventory in a small shop she rebuilt after having been wiped outin the storm. Another member, bookkeeper Monica Landry, used amicro loan to purchase software and hardware for her accountingbusiness that also had to be rebuilt after the storm.

Yet another need that became clear in the wake of the oil spillwas for translators to work with Vietnamese members trying to workthrough the process of getting compensation for their oil spillrelated losses from the trust fund BP established to cover thoselosses. The credit union was one of the only institutions in thearea that had the experience with financial communication inVietnamese, in addition to the trust of its members, to really helpfacilitate the process, Taylor explained.