By Ken Rapoport, NV Contributor

BUCKEYE-SHAKER – A coalition of activeCleveland-area residents, including this writer,remains committed to taking New York CommunityBank to task for leaving the ShakerSquare community.
Our group has been meeting for more thantwo years and it now includes organizationssuch as ESOP (Empowering and StrengtheningOhio’s People), the Ohio Fair Lending Coalition,Organize!Ohio, Neighborhood Progress,Inc, and local community development groupssuch as SHAD and the Buckeye NeighborhoodDevelopment Corporation. Representatives ofCongresswoman Marcia Fudge and representativesfrom the office of Congressman DennisKucinich also have joined the regular meetingsof the coalition.

The planning committee of this group, nownumbering in the thirties, meets every couple ofweeks at the Church of the Covenant on EuclidAvenue near Mayfield Road, to plan our nextsteps of action, as well as to assess what progresshas been accomplished to date. Each ofthese groups, along with an increasing numberof concerned community residents, has theirown assignments as to research and action.
The committee plans to continue to meet regularlyuntil a final resolution can be achieved. It isrecommended that anyone wishing to becomeinvolved contact the offices of Organize Ohioat 216-651-2606.
Since New York Community Bank bought theformer Ohio Savings, it has largely turned itsback on the people and merchants of ShakerSquare. The bank closed its only branch in amoderate-income community with a largelyminority population when they closed theirShaker Square branch, at Larchmere and NorthMoreland boulevards, in December, 2010.

Shaker Square is unique. First, many elderlyresidents do not drive so they cannot accessother branches of Ohio Savings. Secondly,many area residents do not own cars becauseof the availability of the RTA Rapid Transit Lineand other public transportation so they, too, cannot reach other Ohio Savings branches.
New York Community Bank, a subsidiary ofNew York Community Bancorp, the 21st largestbank in the United States, bought Ohio Savingsin late 2009. In order to do this, New York CommunityBank took $2 billion in taxpayer moneyto acquire the Cleveland-based Ohio Savings.New York Community Bancorp has almost $41billion in assets, according to its website andthe Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.But the bank has issued less than 2 percentof our dollars on deposit back to the community.Within the city of Cleveland, the bankhas loaned 0.09 percent of our dollars on depositback to the community.

For comparisonpurposes, Park View Federal Savings Bankloaned about 44.5 percent of the dollars ondeposit with their bank to the county and itsresidents, according to Home Mortgage Disclosure(HMDA) Data provided by the MandelCenter on Urban Poverty and CommunityDevelopment at Case Western Reserve Universityand compiled by Frank Ford of NeighborhoodProgress, Inc. The Shaker Squarebranch, alone, had almost $23 million in depositsand that was not the smallest depositbase among their Cleveland area branches,yet it has been the only one closed by NewYork Community Bank.

The FDIC has shown some interest in examiningthis issue, as it severely impacts the bank’sCommunity Reinvestment Act rating, and thatrating is essential in determining whether ornot New York Community Bank will be allowedto acquire other banks in the near future. If theFDIC believes the bank is not in compliancewith the CRA, New York Community Bank willbe denied the authority to do to other communitieswhat it has done to Cleveland, or toacquire other banks across the country, as hasbeen their stated plan.

Ken Rapoport is a writer, editor, communityadvocate and proud citizen of the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood. He has a B.A. in Englishfrom The Ohio State University and a J.D.from Case Western Reserve University.