NEW YORK — The executive director of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions has written The New York Times to challenge an oversight which appeared to leave credit unions out of the city's new anti-poverty effort.
Clifford Rosenthal responded to an opinion piece published a week earlier by Rourke O'Brien. O'Brien, a policy analyst with the New America Foundation, asserted in his opinion piece that all low-income New Yorkers receiving conditional cash transfers in a new pilot project "should be required to have a checking account at a federally insured bank."
In a letter to the editor, Rosenthal recommended that O'Brien's assertion should be expanded to include credit unions, many of which already play a major role in filling banking gaps in New York City's underserved neighborhoods.
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"The idea that low-income consumers should be banked is absolutely correct," said Rosenthal. "I commend Rourke and others in the asset-building field for promoting this idea, but what is most important to me is that credit unions, and particularly community development credit unions, who have been providing life-line financial services to communities red-lined by banks be made an integral part of the solution.
"As community-controlled, not-for-profit financial institutions, credit unions have less market pressures than banks when it comes to serving low- and moderate-income individuals," explained Rosenthal. "What that translates into is more affordable products and services that build rather than strip wealth."
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