For the past 32 years, the Ohio Fair Lending & Vital Communities Coalition has sponsored an annual conference addressing the problems of equity and lending in Cuyahoga County and the State of Ohio. Starting in 2015, we joined with the Levin College of Urban Affairs in sponsoring a year-long Brown Bag Forum series to focus
on issues that impact lending and the vitality of communities in Cuyahoga County. Due to the pandemic, we have curtailed our in-person meetings at Cleveland State University in exchange for the world of virtual meetings. The result has been a large expansion of our audience. Even though we are squares on a computer screen, sharing information virtually has been an effective tool for bringing people together. The persistence of discrimination in lending has captured the imagination of Washington D.C. policymakers, where a new task force has been formed in the Department of Justice to tackle the problem of redlining.

Through this conference, we will be addressing a new approach to lending: public banking. This concept has been around for years, starting in the Depression in North Dakota when a state-wide public bank was created in order to help ranchers and farmers meet credit needs during the financial crisis. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that even all our collective efforts to reform banking practices have met little progress. A victory here and a little victory there occur, but there are still major issues in banking today: even as banks overwhelmingly receive excellent ratings on CRA exams, precious little credit is available in low- and moderate-income communities, particularly in communities of color, as evidenced by data being presented today by Frank Ford.

Here in Cleveland, as well as throughout the country, there is a nascent effort to build public banking infrastructure that would be laser-focused on helping low- and moderate income people gain access to credit. 

At this conference, we will provide details on that effort, and how it is growing in Greater Cleveland and around the country. I want to extend my sincere thanks to all of our conference planning members who have diligently participated in meeting after meeting to put monthly forums and this conference together. And a special warm thanks to our sponsors who make this work possible. We’re looking forward to this conference and to everyone’s participation. A special thank you to Catherine Chervenak, last year’s VISTA, and this year’s VISTA, Catherine Rolnicki. 

If you wish to be part of the conference planning committee, please reach out.

Charles Bromley

Director, Ohio Fair Lending Coalition

November 2021