Greenlining Coalition

An advocacy group Wednesday chastised Pasadena's East West Bancorp, saying the company gave too little to charity and made too few small loans to non-Chinese minority businesses. The criticism opened an unusual rift between the Greenlining Institute and East West Chairman Dominic Ng, who is known for his personal philanthropy. Ng accused Greenlining, a onetime ally, of trying to strong-arm him into committing funds to groups without first carefully checking their credentials.

The article also discussed the Greenlining Coalition of San Francisco's plan to criticize American Savings Bank for redlining minority neighborhoods throughout the state. As a member of the Greenlining Coalition, I disagree. My experience has been that American is a good neighbor and strong supporter of the Hispanic community. American Savings is undertaking several initiatives to increase lending to minority home buyers. It has new offices and loan centers in East Los Angeles and South-Central Los Angeles, two neighborhoods neglected by other financial institutions, which reduces competition and makes home ownership more difficult.

The nation's top bank regulator issued an alarm Thursday about mortgages with artificially low starting payments, telling participants at a Los Angeles conference that borrowers needed better warnings that their bills inevitably would jump. After the steep rise in home prices over the last few years, such loans have helped people stretch their finances to buy properties. But eventually, the payments ramp up.

Linking of Utility Executives' Pay to Minority Advances Urged: At an annual review of utility efforts to increase hiring and outside contracts with women and minorities, Robert L. Gnaizda, general counsel to the Greenlining Coalition of minority and consumer organizations, Friday called for linking utilities' CEO salaries and bonuses to improvements in these areas.

A political firestorm is brewing in California, one with potentially great consequences for the state. It pits grass-roots inner-city groups responsibly addressing environmental concerns while pursuing community needs like schools, housing and jobs against well-funded, privileged activists exploiting eco-issues for their own private ends. At stake is whether the state's increasingly wealthy and influential elites can honestly work with people of lesser means.

In the largest commitment of its kind from a Japanese-controlled bank, Sumitomo Bank of California on Thursday unveiled an agreement to provide more than $500 million--a full 10% of its assets--in home and community development loans to neglected areas in California. Sumitomo said it has made a 10-year commitment to make these loans in low- and moderate-income communities all over the state.

A coalition of community organizations has requested a meeting with federal banking regulators and industry executives to discuss ways to persuade California banks to provide more loans to minorities and increase the availability of affordable housing. The organization, called the Greenlining Coalition, asked Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Robert F. Erburu, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to set a meeting within the next 30 days.

A combination of 16 minority, homeless and other groups, calling itself the "Greenlining Coalition," demanded on Wednesday that any savings and loan bailout "be linked to a homeless bailout." It is the same position supported by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, said coalition chief spokesman attorney Robert L. Gnaizda of Public Advocates.

Japanese banks, whose growing share of the U.S. banking industry has alarmed some analysts, are being urged by a coalition of activists to expand their presence here by buying banks and thrifts allegedly unwilling or incapable of serving minority and poor people in California. In a four-page letter sent Wednesday to Taro Nakayama, Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo, the Greenlining Coalition of San Francisco wrote that it supports "foreign investments from Japan . . .

Detailed socioeconomic information on individual towns is essential for fostering economic development and improved government policies in underserved areas, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told attendees of a conference Thursday in Los Angeles.

Ameriquest Capital Corp. and the Greenlining Institute have had a rewarding friendship -- an odd coupling of an Orange County-based mortgage giant and a Berkeley-based activist network known for criticizing big corporations. Ameriquest donated $350,000 to the institute in little more than two years and kept up a steady dialogue about the advocacy group's concerns about the mortgage industry. The Greenlining Institute, in turn, endorsed Ameriquest's pledges to treat borrowers fairly.

For 24 years, the Greenlining Institute has pressured big banks to do more for financially stressed areas of California, winning hundreds of billions of dollars in pledges from Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., Washington Mutual Inc. and others to provide residential and small-business loans to minorities.

In a sign that the homeownership gap between whites and Latinos is widening in Southern California, conventional home loans to Latinos at all income levels in Los Angeles County grew by 6% from 1995 to 1999, while comparable loans to whites shot up 81%, according to a report to be released today by a coalition of community and business organizations.

A political firestorm is brewing in California, one with potentially great consequences for the state. It pits grass-roots inner-city groups responsibly addressing environmental concerns while pursuing community needs like schools, housing and jobs against well-funded, privileged activists exploiting eco-issues for their own private ends. At stake is whether the state's increasingly wealthy and influential elites can honestly work with people of lesser means.

Financial institutions have been increasingly recognizing the potential of Southern California's ethnic and minority communities. One of the latest efforts to foster economic development in those communities is a $77-million, three-year pilot program launched by Merrill Lynch, the Greenlining Institute and the Orange County Alliance. The program is taking a three-pronged approach to investment in ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

California's seven largest investor-owned utility companies still have a way to go to meet a state mandate to buy 20% of their supplies and services from minority and women contractors by 1993. But legislative and industry watchdogs, although skeptical of some of the companies' figures, are meanwhile praising their efforts to meet the goals. Last year, of a total $4.958 billion in purchases, the companies spent $823.2 million--or 16.

The nation's top bank regulator issued an alarm Thursday about mortgages with artificially low starting payments, telling participants at a Los Angeles conference that borrowers needed better warnings that their bills inevitably would jump. After the steep rise in home prices over the last few years, such loans have helped people stretch their finances to buy properties. But eventually, the payments ramp up.

Japan's giant Sumitomo Bank was accused Thursday of exporting discriminatory hiring and lending practices to its California subsidiary that have favored people of Japanese descent and hurt African Americans and Latinos. The Greenlining Institute, a San Francisco-based public advocacy group, said the world's second-largest bank has the worst record of any major California bank in its treatment of racial minorities within and outside the bank.

Insurance Initiative Planned: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., California's largest auto and homeowners insurer, plans to announce today what the state Insurance Department calls "a multibillion-dollar urban marketing plan" for economically distressed neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Compton. State Farm developed the plan cooperatively with the Greenlining Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank that specializes in urban economic issues.