Guest Contributor: Stephen Jacob, AVP, Credit Analysis
Haiti is not some far away place to me. Both my parents are from Haiti and I have family members that still live there. I try to go to Haiti every 2 to 3 years and last visited in 2007 to volunteer with a local organization called Concerned Haitian Americans of Illinois (CHAI). I have seen a mix of improving and deteriorating conditions in the country over the past 10 years, but this recent crisis is a wake up call.
Much of the devastation in Haiti was largely unavoidable. Even if the buildings had been constructed better, it is unlikely any well made structures could survive a 7.0 earthquake[1]. Nonetheless, lax building code enforcement and poor construction quality has exacerbated the problem. For example, in 2008 there was a school collapse in Port-au-Prince that had nothing to do with the earthquake. However, some of the lack of communications and access to roads to help disaster victims can be attributed to a very poor and deteriorating infrastructure. The rush to make sure that those in need get emergency medical attention, clean water, and food, should compel us to think about making sustainable improvements to not only prevent future crises but also to create new economic opportunities that improves the quality of life for Haitians.
Immediately after the disaster there will be an opportunity to rebuild – to begin anew—creating the infrastructure designed to sustain a modern country. In recent months, there have been initiatives to reduce the time it takes to incorporate a business. According to the World Bank, it requires 13 procedures, takes 195 days, and costs 227.93% GNI per capita to start a business in Haiti – this is almost unheard of. Across the border in the Dominican Republic, it requires only 8 procedures, takes 19 days, and costs 17.3% GNI per capita to start a business. Along each of the World Bank’s indices of access to business credit and protection of investors, Haiti is in the bottom of the rankings[2]. Haiti is one of the most difficult countries in the world to do business with—this needs to change if there’s ever to be any hope for catalyzing the development that can begin to transform the country and improve peoples’ lives.
In addition, the average Haitian, no different than most, needs to be gainfully employed in order to provide for his or her family and businesses need either debt or savings to get off the ground. But with the unemployment rate hovering around 50% for the last two decades, gainful employment will require greater foreign direct investment and a growing economy. A long-term solution requires investment in both the country’s physical infrastructure (e.g., roads, ports, and telecommunications) and its social infrastructure (e.g., improved school system, reform of a standing army or national police force, and protection of property rights). Without this investment and the ability to provide access to credit, Haiti will continue to be mired in poverty.
Many friends and colleagues have been asking me how to help. In the near term, money is the best thing to send because Haiti is a logistical nightmare, (especially today). And, if you donate, please do your homework to ensure your donation goes to a reputable organization who will put your fiscal aid to good use in Haiti. I am donating to the Concerned Haitian Americans of Illinois, but I am listing a few other very worthwhile organizations for you to consider making a contribution.
[1] To put things in perspective, the 1989 San Francisco earthquake measured 6.9 on the Richter Scale.
[2] The complete report is available at http://www.doingbusiness.org/Documents/CountryProfiles/HTI.pdf
Have you seen a version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol yet this year? Have you ever noticed how shockingly relevant the Victorian themes of materialism and the plight of the underprivileged are to today’s society? These are forces that impact ShoreBank’s communities every day. Yet, in the words of Dickens, “I have always thought of [the holiday season]. . . as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” Here are just a few ways our ShoreBank teams are giving back to our communities this holiday season:
ShoreBank Retail Branches
Our retail branches just completed a 2 week “Head to Toes for Kids” clothing drive. They collected gently used hats, scarves, gloves, and new underwear and socks, for children aged toddler through sixth grade who need them.
ShoreBank Customer Service
Our customer service team works with our ShoreBank customers and prospects every day and really understands that times are tough. Instead of engaging in their annual Secret Santa gift exchange, our customer service team pooled their Secret Santa funds to collect and to donate $300 to REST. REST provides shelter and social service programs to tens of thousands of homeless people in Chicago. That donation really is customer service!
ShoreBank Fellows
Our Princeton Fellows are applying their education to not only ShoreBank but also to mentor 4th graders every week as WITS Chicago volunteers. WITS (Working in the Schools) is an organization that provides individual tutoring to Chicago youth to promote literacy and a love of reading.
ShoreBank Nonprofits & Foundations Team
Our Nonprofits & Foundations Team is giving back while giving to various Nonprofits. This year they are giving customers coffee bags from Aspire CoffeeWorks. Aspire CoffeeWorks offers craft-roasted coffees while providing job opportunities to people with developmental disabilities. But there is always more giving to be done when nonprofits are concerned. This team also collected and is donating over 5 boxes of books to a nonprofit to help promote and inspire literacy among children and adults.
As we enter the end of 2009 may you too be inspired to give as you able, for it is our generosity that can often help counter the neglect of the underprivileged in communities everywhere.
Happy Giving and Happier Holidays from everyone at ShoreBank!
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.
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.
Most banks offer their customers the option of banking online in addition to writing paper checks and conducting transactions at brick-and-mortar branches. However, at ShoreBank we see online banking as more than a way to provide convenient banking options (though it certainly does that). We also see it as an integral component of our commitment to the environment and our position as a triple bottom line institution.
The environmental impact of paperless, electronic banking should not be underestimated. We’re talking about more than the occasional four-by-two inch ATM receipt. For example, Greendig.net estimates that if every household in the U.S. switches to electronic banking, it would save 16.5 million trees each year. That’s paper for envelopes, paper for stamps, paper for checks…all being saved.
Many customers also seem specifically attracted to the green aspects of paperless banking. In 2008, Newsweek reported that 57% of U.S. consumers expressed an interest in green banking when polled about it.
ShoreBank has always seen its environmental commitment as integrally connected to its community development mission. For example, supporting businesses like Indie Energy—a company that designs and builds environmentally-friendly, renewable energy systems throughout the Chicago region— creates jobs for people in the community while making their homes more energy efficient and affordable. By encouraging energy-efficiency whether by financing a green business or providing homeowners with free energy-audits—ShoreBank is helping homeowners lower their utility bills and tackle global warning by working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Want to learn more? One easy-to-use tool for gaining a better understanding of the link between environmental and economic community development can be found on our new website, https://www.sbk.com/. It’s a fully-functional bank website with state-of-the-art technologies to make it easier to manage your money. It also has stories that will engage you in ShoreBank’s mission. Now you can manage your finances and build wealth while seeing, through customer stories, how we are building stronger, healthier communities and reinvigorating the lives of our customers.
So I am encouraging you to browse https://www.sbk.com to help “put a face” onto the opportunities and people we work with —both through online and good old fashioned brick-and-mortar banking. I think you’ll enjoy learning more and hope from these stories you will either begin or continue supporting ShoreBank in its mission.
To help more hard working people buy their first home and speed up the end of the recession, the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, scheduled to expire December 1, 2009, ought to be extended into 2010.
Since its inception as a vital component of President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the tax credit has assisted nearly 1.5 million Americans, providing $10 billion for the purchase of a new home. The first time home buyer is someone who has been without a principal residence for a three-year period. It is available for homes purchased on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009, but does not have to be repaid. Vacation homes and rentals properties are ineligible.
Single tax-payers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 are eligible for the full tax credit. The credit reduces the new homeowner’s tax bill or increases their refund–dollar for dollar. Unlike most tax credits, the first-time home buyer credit is fully refundable. This difference means that the credit will be paid to eligible taxpayers, even if they owe no tax or the credit is more than the tax owed. (For additional information about the home buyer tax credit, visit www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com.)
Helping homebuyers to realize homeownership and life in a strong, healthy community is not only ShoreBank’s mission, but also the dream of millions of Americans. Previously we could rely on consumer spending to lead us through the recession and onto the road of economic recovery, but not now. Those days, I am afraid, are gone. I believe an extension of the tax credit is necessary in order to help stabilize our communities by encouraging consumer spend on home purchases, generating the additional revenues local government agencies need and encouraging the home improvement projects which create the badly-needed new jobs. In fact, unemployment is the number one cause of housing foreclosures, so an extension of the tax credit is essential and best of all, it has proven it works.
The tax credit is in a great position to continue being successful. While some have blamed the mortgage meltdown due to the ease by which many buyers obtained unaffordable loans, most of the irresponsible lenders are no longer in business. And now there are fewer institutions serving the areas hardest hit by the recession, and yet there are plenty of hard working individuals and families out there who need quality loans, and who qualify for them too.
Some naysayers will point to the tax credit not coming cheaply to American taxpayers. It is estimated to be costing taxpayers about $1 billion a month, but much of the tax credit will inevitably pay for itself. So now is the time for our government to invest in our housing market, our communities, and our taxpayers. Besides its proven record for speeding up the economic recovery, it is also a “tried and tested” formula for creating new jobs that will prevent future foreclosures and help stabilize entire communities.
The explosive growth in funding for utility-led efficiency programs is one of the most hopeful signs for bolstering energy efficiency efforts in the Midwest and across the country. Thanks to a growing number of states instituting energy efficiency portfolio standards, funding levels are expected to multiply in the coming years. Indeed, according to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, utilities are expected to spend nearly $900 million annually on energy efficiency in the region by 2012. In Illinois, annual funding will top $250 million by then, up from under $10 million just a few years ago. This level of sustained spending could be transformational on many levels.
However, one detail that gets too little attention is the degree to which important policy decisions regarding priorities, goals, and acceptable uses of these funds have fallen to the regulatory bodies overseeing utilities. While extremely competent and professional, these commissions were established to set utility rates, adjudicate grievances, and ensure continuity of services – not administer programs, promote economic development, nor be the driving force behind the enormous task of transitioning the economy to a low carbon future. In essence, we have transformed the judiciary into a unit of the executive branch without any discussion of the benefits, consequences, or merits of doing so. More alarming, we have done so for one of the most pressing and important challenges we face as a nation (and species).
One consequence of managing these funds through the commission process is that decisions are made according to a very narrow set of criteria. Particularly important is the amount of energy saved compared to resources expended – with no consideration given to the overall economic output produced, jobs created or maintained, markets transformed, or dollars leveraged. Nor does the process evaluate the equanimity of how funds are spent, with assurances of equal distribution to all geographies, incomes, and sectors. Accountability is thought of primarily in terms of seeing that the money produces tangible energy savings, not any of the other elements we all expect and demand from government, such as open access, transparency, helping disadvantaged communities and businesses, incenting innovation, etc.
Given the importance of the decisions being made and the coming scarcity of public dollars, we need a healthy debate about which investments should be made, which outcomes and evaluation metrics are most pertinent, and what process should be used for measuring success and impact. Some states, such as Connecticut and Massachusetts, have created new bodies to ensure that investment decisions better reflect a broad array of policy goals. In Massachusetts, for instance, alternative energy investments are directed by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, which seeks to increase installed capacity, as well as foster other important priorities, such as driving innovation, improving global competitiveness, and fomenting job creation. Hopefully, the establishment of these new agencies and wider set of priorities portends the start of the necessary and critical discussion about our best way forward.
By Mary Houghton, cofounder and President, ShoreBank Corporation
The recent Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference focused on “how” the world can address urgent global needs like providing greater access to quality health care and education, and creating sustainable economies. Finance turned out to be one of the “hows.”
President Clinton used his convening capacity to bring private, public, philanthropic and nonprofit partners together in “commitments” (a firm commitment of an amount to launch or expand a scalable program) that gained support and sometimes funding from their presence and coverage at the event. The CGI also featured progress reports on previous “commitments,” showing the power of past conferences. The areas of impact included strides made in expanding access to finance for the poor.
This was an excellent forum for discussing new ideas and models in the field of financial services, of which there are many, like a dramatic increase in small business lending or using microfinance platforms to deliver other services. In the wake of the current global financial crisis, many voices are pointing to the failure of the globe’s largest banks and financial institutions and are seeking either a return to local-scale banking or to business practices that create value beyond short-term financial profits.
This backdrop only increased the urgency my colleagues and I felt about our participation. CGI selected Jan Piercy, Executive Vice President, ShoreBank to be a Finance Track leader, responsible for designing a plenary and three working sessions. In addition to my speaking role on a breakout panel on how banks might better serve consumers who are without access to affordable, traditional banking services, a number of ShoreBank Directors, managers, partners and “alums” served as Finance Track advisors, moderators and speakers.
ShoreBank was also involved in five new “commitments” during CGI 2009, of which three of them were selected to be publicly announced during the sessions. They include:
* John Berdes and his colleagues at ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia working with more than a dozen organizations in Oregon to create a new loan program to improve energy efficiency for homeowners in Portland and ultimately, elsewhere in the state. The program could grow to be very large and be replicated nationally. This caught the eye of the Clinton Global Initiative staff and the “commitment” was announced by President Clinton at a special plenary session.
* Arjan Schutte of the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) was recognized in a working session for CFSI’s commitment to establish the Core Fund to finance businesses extending financial products and services to low-income consumers.
* ShoreCap Exchange’s “commitment” to create a Small Business Network to support local financial institutions extending credit to smaller borrowers in developing and emerging markets around the world.
It was also announced that ShoreBank is a founding member of the Investors Council of the Global Impact Investing Network, which committed to expanding the ways to evaluate social as well as financial returns on investments. ShoreBank’s partners in The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) are Triodos and BRAC. Our three institutions became co-sponsors of a new network of banks that have a triple bottom-line core business model. Launched in early 2009, GABV’s next annual meeting will be in Dhaka in March 2010. Banks with at least $100 million in assets and central social banking focus are sought to join the alliance.
Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of CGI was former President Clinton participating in a half-dozen sessions with all the facts at his fingertips, a passion for change that would benefit ordinary people, and with a strong, often apolitical point of view.
Not surprising? Matt Damon and Brad Pitt can give good speeches!
The Clinton Global Initiative invites members back year after year to report on progress (and obstacles) in achieving commitments made in earlier years. This lends more reality and honesty than is usual in these venues. For example, Brad Pitt reported on some very attractive green housing built by Make It Right in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. He was proud of the hundred-some houses now up and occupied but also modest enough to wish it were hundreds more.
A friend of mine in Northern Minnesota bikes to work year round, even in the cold and snow. Oddly I found this inspiring. So this summer, I bought a bike and began riding it to work. I was a bit hesitant at first, but a month into it I was hooked! I was reducing my carbon footprint, saving money on gas, losing a little weight, and discovering interesting new parts of the city. I sometimes passed Chicago celebrities like Oprah Winfrey or Jesse Jackson Jr. on the lakefront trail. Biking was good.
I discovered interesting new places within the city that I might have missed in a car, including a tiny Lebanese neighborhood (with a bakery selling the best pita bread I have ever tasted), an awesome Romanian restaurant (Little Bucharest—it has since become one of my favorites), and many more museums, businesses, and parks (which I still have yet to stop and explore). After this first month, I felt I was becoming “A real Chicago bicyclist.” Then part of me said: “So maybe it’s time for you to join the Active Transportation Alliance, huh?”
Although we did previously blog on the Active Transportation Alliance (ATA), if you’re not familiar, they are a nonprofit that advocates for bikes (and other non-motorized forms of transportation) in Chicagoland. They have programs promoting bicycle safety, and they lobby to ensure that bike lanes are included on city streets. They also sponsor international events like “World Carfree Day” (which occurred last Tuesday, September 22) to encourage commuters to experiment with going for one day without using a car.
But I balked. Part of me felt that bicyclists in Chicago already had it good… maybe even “too good.” You see, there are a few bad eggs in the Chicago bicycle community who never obey any rules of the road. Insanely, they think that just having a bicycle makes you above the law! (I used to imagine Chicago cops observing a bicyclist on a crime spree, and saying to one another, “I guess there’s nothing we can do; he’s got a bicycle.”) But biking overall was pretty easy where I was.
So I procrastinated. Then, the next weekend, I decided I would take my bike to run an errand in a less bike friendly region nearby.
Let’s just say I joined the Active Transportation Alliance the next day.
As I rode in this un-named area, the demeanor changed dramatically for the worse. First, there were no bike lanes, and it was a struggle to figure out where to ride. Then, remarkably, I had people slow down their cars and roll down their windows to yell at me just for riding a bicycle! If you rode on the street, people would yell at you to ride on the sidewalk. If you rode on the sidewalk, people would yell at you to get back on the street. And perhaps most disconcerting of all, there were no other bicyclists.
I was shocked. Suddenly, the value of the inroads made by groups like the ATA was all too clear. It was also clear that I had taken them for granted. My little test ride provided a vision of how horrible things might be for bicyclists without nonprofits like the ATA working hard to advocate for them.
Yes, it still annoys me when an arrogant Chicago bicyclist acts like he or she doesn’t need to obey traffic signals, but moreover, I’m just thankful for all that we do have here in Chicago. There are miles of paved paths just for bikes. There are bicycle safety awareness programs for motorists. There are bike lanes on the city streets. And if people do roll down their windows to yell at you, it’ll be for some transgression other than simply “being a bicyclist.”
With easy access to the fresh produce that modern supermarkets make possible, it can be easy to forget that you can grow nutritious and delicious produce in your own yard – even if you live in the city. It took battling congestion and a trip to the suburbs for something as simple as a home-cooked meal to open my eyes about the benefits of cultivating an urban garden.
Many people may think of Victory Gardens when they hear the term “urban gardening.” During war time individuals across the country planted gardens in yards and on unused plots. Eleanor Roosevelt planted one at the White House during World War II. Today, however, gardens are back in the limelight – even the White House has one again.
The benefits of gardening in the city are many – and gardens can be even more important in neighborhoods that lack access to good and affordable produce even in stores (“food deserts”). A family garden provides a combination of increased nutrition and decreased cost (some estimate savings of $200 to $500 per year). It also adds a little fun in seeing plants grow.
But what if you don’t have a yard? Unused plots can also be converted into community gardens. Not only do they create a garden oasis, but they can also create an opportunity for neighbors to meet and cultivate a bit of the future together.
A local nonprofit, Growing Home, uses urban agriculture to cultivate lives at a whole different level, as a transitional job training program. Low income and formerly homeless individuals nurture plants in fully organic urban farms. Two of its sites, in fact, are in the middle of the city. Much of the produce is ultimately sold in farmers markets or through delivery, and 100% of the proceeds go back to supporting the program.
My dinner in the suburbs was great. The food I ate had excellent flavor and I was able to explore a tremendous garden. But I really didn’t have to go out of the city for that experience. Urban gardens, it turns out, are growing more than veggies right here.
Haiti is not some far away place to me. Both my parents are from Haiti and I have family members that still live there. I try to go to Haiti every 2 to 3 years and last visited in 2007 to volunteer with a local organization called Concerned Haitian Americans of Illinois (CHAI). I have seen a mix of improving and deteriorating conditions in the country over the past 10 years, but this recent crisis is a wake up call.
In addition, the average Haitian, no different than most, needs to be gainfully employed in order to provide for his or her family and businesses need either debt or savings to get off the ground. But with the unemployment rate hovering around 50% for the last two decades, gainful employment will require greater foreign direct investment and a growing economy. A long-term solution requires investment in both the country’s physical infrastructure (e.g., roads, ports, and telecommunications) and its social infrastructure (e.g., improved school system, reform of a standing army or national police force, and protection of property rights). Without this investment and the ability to provide access to credit, Haiti will continue to be mired in poverty.
Have you seen a version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol yet this year? Have you ever noticed how shockingly relevant the Victorian themes of materialism and the plight of the underprivileged are to today’s society? These are forces that impact ShoreBank’s communities every day. Yet, in the words of Dickens, “I have always thought of [the holiday season]. . . as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” Here are just a few ways our ShoreBank teams are giving back to our communities this holiday season:
ShoreBank Customer Service
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:
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%. 
Want to learn more? One easy-to-use tool for gaining a better understanding of the link between environmental and economic community development can be found on our new website, 
Helping homebuyers to realize homeownership and life in a strong, healthy community is not only ShoreBank’s mission, but also the dream of millions of Americans. Previously we could rely on consumer spending to lead us through the recession and onto the road of economic recovery, but not now. Those days, I am afraid, are gone. I believe an extension of the tax credit is necessary in order to help stabilize our communities by encouraging consumer spend on home purchases, generating the additional revenues local government agencies need and encouraging the home improvement projects which create the badly-needed new jobs. In fact, unemployment is the number one cause of housing foreclosures, so an extension of the tax credit is essential and best of all, it has proven it works.
The recent 
This was an excellent forum for discussing new ideas and models in the field of financial services, of which there are many, like a dramatic increase in small business lending or using microfinance platforms to deliver other services. In the wake of the current global financial crisis, many voices are pointing to the failure of the globe’s largest banks and financial institutions and are seeking either a return to local-scale banking or to business practices that create value beyond short-term financial profits.
The benefits of gardening in the city are many – and gardens can be even more important in neighborhoods that lack access to good and affordable produce even in stores (“food deserts”). A family garden provides a combination of increased nutrition and decreased cost (some estimate savings of $200 to $500 per year). It also adds a little fun in seeing plants grow.