Lael Brainard: Keeping community at the heart of the Community Reinvestment Act

Speech by Ms Lael Brainard, Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development Eighth Annual Community Development Conference Build.Community.Power, New York City, 18 May 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

I want to thank Ben Dulchin and the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) for inviting me to be here with you today.  While New York is known globally as a cultural hub that attracts the world to its doorstep, it is known locally as a city of neighborhoods.  Like other cities across this country, New York's future is bound to the vitality of its neighborhoods as places to live, work, learn, play, worship, and invest.

Neighborhoods have been the focus of ANHD's work for over 40 years.  The organization's success is a function of its unwavering focus on preserving and strengthening the quality of life in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods across the five boroughs.  The mission of each of the members of ANHD is to strengthen these communities.  Together, your organizations are providing capacity building, advocacy, and services for the benefit of your communities and the city as a whole.  

Like many of the nation's metropolitan areas, New York City has rebounded since the recession and is thriving.  That, however, has not been the experience for many.  Many of the city's residents have not fully recovered, and some have fallen further behind.  Here, as elsewhere in the country, there remain important gaps in economic opportunity.