Community Reinvestment honored by Citizens Bank

FROM LEFT: Joseph J. MarcAurele, president, Citizens Bank, Rhode Island; Warwick resident and Community Reinvestment Act award recipient Ray Neirinckx; and Gov. Donald L. Carcieri. /
FROM LEFT: Joseph J. MarcAurele, president, Citizens Bank, Rhode Island; Warwick resident and Community Reinvestment Act award recipient Ray Neirinckx; and Gov. Donald L. Carcieri. /

The Citizens Bank Foundation recently granted Ray Neirinckx $30,000 in honor of the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Community Reinvestment Act. Neirinckx is the statewide coordinator of both the Office of Homeownership and the Office of Community Development & Technical Assistance for the R.I. Housing Resources Commission. He will award the money to a charity of his choosing.
Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act to address a practice – common in the banking industry in the 1960s and 1970s – known as “redlining”: denying credit to people based on their neighborhood, race, marital status, last name and many other indicators that served as false proxies for “too risky.”
The Community Reinvestment Act ended this practice by obliging banks to pursue lending opportunities within their local service areas, which prevented banks from taking a community’s deposits while ignoring that community’s needs.
Neirinckx has counseled nearly 1,000 individuals facing mortgage foreclosure and is actively working to find a solution to the foreclosure issue Rhode Islanders face today.

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