ShoreBank Blog
The ShoreBank Blog is your place to find ShoreBank news, new product information, and our insight into the banking world.
Archive for November, 2009
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
I believe, in the words of W.J. Cameron, that “Thanksgiving . . . is a word of action.” It is not just a moment. So as we look back on 2009, one of the most economically difficult years in our nation’s history, I am thankful for many things that offer real hope for the future. I give thanksgiving for:
Social Media’s growing impact
Its role as a catalyst for creating positive social and environmental change continues to grow larger. For example, this year’s Summer of Social Good exhibited the potential for what can be accomplished when social media is implemented to raise funds for nonprofit organizations. And President Obama’s administration and numerous organizations continue to demonstrate the impact upon an issue or a cause that can stem from the buzz created by social media.
The Chicago Climate Action Plan
The City’s plan to retrofit 400,000 units of housing by 2020 to mitigate 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is already off to a great start. Administrators claim to have exceeded the quantity of residential retrofits they wanted to complete this year while planting 7 million square-feet of green roofs. Plus, additional bike lanes and new storage racks across the city to accommodate parking 12,000 bicycles will help reduce monthly expenses, congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions, all of which will make Chicago a healthier place and improve the quality of life for everyone.
Extending the First-Time Home Buyers Credit
The tax credit that has already helped nearly 1.5 million Americans to buy a home has been extended to June 2010. I am confident it will continue to boost home sales and fuel the consumer spending that will help stabilize our communities and get the economy moving faster.
The Home Affordability and Modification Program
This economic crisis is not limited to “a bunch of irresponsible people who bought or sold more home than they could afford.” So we are proud participants in the Administration’s Home Affordability and Modification Program. We have completed more than 50 successful modifications and, in addition to our Rescue Loan Program, we are doing everything we can do to help homeowners to save their homes.
The new SBK.com Website
Developing a fresh new look and new features for our website provides more people with greater access to the resources and services that will make life’s possibilities all possible.
And most of all – our customers:
We are grateful for all of our customers who support our commitment to providing the services and products that create new opportunities to build strong, sustainable communities and reinvigorate peoples’ lives. We are also so proud of our customers, like Indie Energy, who recently received a $2.42 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to further develop geothermal technologies, for demonstrating the alternative energy industry’s potential to create good paying jobs while helping its customers to consume less energy and reduce their carbon footprint.
We are a “different” bank – and you are a special customer. Thank you for giving us so much to be thankful for in 2009.
Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at ShoreBank!
Tags: Chicago Climate Action Plan, First-Time Home Buyers Credit, home affordability and stability plan, Indie Energy, ShoreBank, social media, triple bottom line
Posted in Outreach | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
As unemployment, the leading cause of foreclosure, continues to soar above 10%, ShoreBank’s work helping homeowners to refinance and modify their mortgages continues to intensify. In addition to implementing the ShoreBank Rescue Loan program, which is helping homeowners to refinance their original loans from other institutions, we are among the few banks aggressively working with our own borrowers in President Obama’s Home Affordability Modification Program (HAMP) to provide new affordable mortgages.
Pundits say: “The bigger the story, the smaller the focus;” so let’s focus on how one of our mortgage lenders is tackling the challenge of saving a home.
Jabari Watson, an experienced loan officer who joined ShoreBank nearly two years ago, never imagined his responsibilities would be turned upside down. Far from his previous ShoreBank role assisting first-time homebuyers and residents with new home purchases, today he has become a mortgage modifier extraordinaire. While the duties have changed dramatically, one constant has remained—the amount of satisfaction he derives from helping an individual or a family have a home.
Each morning, Jabari receives a handful of troubled loan applications from our Asset Protection Department. He then identifies the appropriate, available rescue program that will best help the borrower catch up on his or her mortgage payment and save the home from foreclosure. But time is not on his side. The process usually takes up to 30 days and often the homeowner does not have that kind of time to get the issue resolved.
Once he identifies the appropriate program, Jabari hits the ground running, verifying the program’s criteria for application. To qualify for the HAMP program the borrower must:
- Have originated his or her home loan before January 1, 2009
- Be living in the home as his or her primary residence
- Have an unpaid balance of not more than $729,750 (for a single-family home)
- Have an income (this can include federal assistance or a part-time job)
- Have a monthly mortgage payment that exceeds 31% of their monthly income
In addition, Jabari must obtain certain financial information from his borrowers, including a signed tax return transcript form, their most recent tax return on file, their two most recent pay stubs, and an “affidavit of financial hardship” that, with the exchange of voice and email messages, often takes an inordinate amount of time to collect.
“Despite sifting through the endless mountains of paperwork, my pressure is nothing compared to what our customers are going through,” said Jabari at a recent team meeting. “These people are staring at the possibility of losing their homes and having nowhere to go. Now that is real pressure, so I try and handle their situation with the utmost sensitivity which can be hard to do when I have to ‘beat the clock’ to get the application process in time to save the home.”
Despite this and other current challenges, ShoreBank loan officers like Jabari have successfully completed 53 modifications since the launch of the program with many more in the pipeline. While we look forward to the day in the (hopefully) very near future when we can get back to exclusively making loans for new home purchases, we are committed to helping our customers and our communities through the economic crisis and to helping as many people as we possibly can.
Tags: community development, HAMP, mortgage modification, Rescue Loan program, ShoreBank, triple bottom line
Posted in Mortgage Lending | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Like many in the energy efficiency industry, I believe the United States is on the cusp of a major transformation in how we think about energy, but not for the reasons usually given. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “every [industry] needs a new revolution” – and I believe the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) may just do the trick!
My sense is that one of the most important impacts of ARRA will be the expansion of the participants in, and beneficiaries of, energy efficiency funding and programs. These new actors and interest groups, I hope, will bring needed changes that will make the industry more effective, broad-based, and transformational.
As I referenced in my blog post last month, my concerns reflect very deep seated reservations about the governance and oversight of efficiency programs and funding – especially, in regards to how the goals, evaluation metrics, and allocation processes are determined.
My hope is that ARRA funds will radically transform the equation because:
- A primary goal of ARRA programs is job growth, not to the exclusion of energy savings, but certainly valued equally to the Kwh and BTUs saved.
- ARRA has led to a proliferation of new actors within the energy efficiency industry. In the world of finance, for instance, there are now non-profits, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) (such as our affiliate, ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia), utilities, governmental agencies, and many others that offer novel types of loans for energy saving improvements.
These unconventional lenders bring new energy and new concerns to the field of energy efficiency. For instance, for my colleagues in Portland, while reducing energy consumption is a priority, so too are creating social equity, job opportunities for disadvantaged populations, and proliferation in access to responsible credit for under-served communities. Reconciling this larger set of goals against the historical focus on energy savings alone will be an important challenge going forward.
My hope is that all of the energy unleashed by ARRA funding will lead to a radical transformation in the energy efficiency space. Underserved communities will be better represented in the sector and, in turn, begin to demand greater inclusion in utility sponsored programs. By doing so, they could become allies for the energy efficiency community and greater advocates for these programs and funding. That would be a welcome change, indeed!
Tags: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, green banking, ShoreBank, ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia, triple bottom line
Posted in Green Collar | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Most people think the Census Bureau only springs to life in years ending in zero to conduct its decennial head count. Not so. Among its numerous publications is an annual report on poverty in America. The 2008 report was published a few weeks ago.
Poverty, sadly, never seems to go away, even in the world’s richest country. Our poverty rate last year rose to 13.2%, encompassing 39.8 million people, among the highest numbers in about a dozen years. In addition, more than 17 million people had an income of less than one-half the poverty threshold, and 6.3 million children lived in such low-income households.
Stark as these figures are, they present a snapshot of a moment in time rather than an assessment of the dynamics of poverty. In contrast to many parts of the developing world, poverty in America tends not to be a long-term condition. Over the four-year period from 2003 through 2007, just 1.8% of the American population was chronically poor. On the other hand, almost a third of the population could be classified as living below the poverty level for at least two months. More than a quarter of households classified in the bottom 20% by income moved up between 2004 and 2007, while a similar percentage moved down from the top 20%.
What makes us different from other nations? Mobility. The Census Bureau notes that its statistics “yield insights into…the economic mobility of US residents.” Compared to the millions trapped in generations-long poverty in the urban shantytowns and isolated rural villages of the developing world, poverty in America is relatively dynamic. If there is hope for a better future among those living in despair, it is our nation’s track record of economic mobility.
Though poverty here may not always be a life sentence, having almost 40 million people in poverty at any time remains a national disgrace. It is more than the populations of Connecticut, Mississippi, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, North Dakota, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia combined. It is time to move more people to action.
Tags: community development, economic predictors, green banking, ShoreBank, triple bottom line
Posted in Banking Industry | No Comments »
