Image credit: Christiane Riederer
I'd love to share a ray of hope about the ongoing eviction crisis in our communities.
- America's 5,200 credit unions are democratically-owned, cooperative banks with $56 billion in excess, member-owned capital. They are the institution best able to shelter Americans through an eviction crisis with a missing social safety net.
- If the 1,430 credit unions with over $100 million in assets put 5% (or more) of their capital into emergency loans, it would create over $8.7 billion in anti-eviction assistance, overnight, with no new legislation needed.
- We Own It has called upon the CEOs of these credit unions to do just that, by sending letters to each of them. As an example, the letter written to Virginia Credit Union in Richmond, an epicenter of the eviction crisis, is at https://i.weown.it/letter_to_vacu. (VACU has ~ $100M in excess capital.)
- We Own It (https://weown.it/about) was founded in 2015 to build the national network for cooperative member-owners rights, education, and organizing. It is a 501(c)3 nonprofit headquartered in Madison, WI, with organizing fellows and coalitional partners across the country.
- This is the kick-off of We Own It's campaign to #KeepPeopleInTheirHomes. Next, local organizers will look up their own credit union's capital and ability to lend at https://i.weown.it/cu_info and start local petition campaigns for emergency anti-eviction lending.
Jake Schlachter, Executive Director, We Own It: "Credit unions and their member-owners didn't cause this eviction crisis, but we have the power to keep people in their homes - $56 billion in available capital - and with that power comes the responsibility to act."
Read the full press release at https://i.weown.it/200918_press_release.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Best regards,
Kiera Hatton
press@weown.it