Good afternoon. I’m honoured to be with you today.

When I am asked to speak to a group like yours, I spend a great deal of time worrying about what I might say that would be of value to you or that would be inspirational.

So I decided to take some good advice from one of the most important people in my life, my youngest daughter who is 25. When she was 7 or 8 years old, I was preparing for a similar event. She said, tell them a story. So, I am going share my story, and make some observations and share some of the lessons I’ve learned over the course of my career.

I am also going to share a little about my role at the Fed and the role of the Community Development Department.

So, there’s a lot of pressure on me to stand up here in front of you - to try to help make what I say worth your time.

I plan to leave time for your questions and comments.

The opinions I am expressing today are my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve.

For those of you I have yet to meet, I joined the senior leadership of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in July 2011 as Senior Vice President of the Bank’s Community Development and Regional Outreach Departments. I have spent most of my professional career as a banker, specifically working in community development financing.

I certainly didn’t start out to be a banker, however. In fact, I can’t remember ever visiting a bank when I was a child. My dream was to go to college and study to be a pediatrician.

For the first 20 or so years of my life, banks were not a part of my world at all. I grew up in the South, mainly in New Orleans, LA. My grandparents and parents were sharecroppers in rural Tylertown, Mississippi. My parents both worked manual labor types of jobs. We didn’t have a lot of money, and what we did have, we didn’t keep in a bank. It wasn’t that we had anything against banks; it’s just that we didn’t know anything about them. In the communities where I grew up, banks were non-existent. I cannot remember ever passing a bank within a 10-mile radius of my home.

If my mother and father needed a new car, or something for the house, they either saved for it or found other ways to finance the purchase. 

I remember my father brought a new car home one day. I overheard him and my mother discussing what the car cost, and how much down payment my dad had to make, etc. The most interesting thing about that conversation was, I distinctly remember him talking about an individual, but not a bank. 

What I learned later was that my father had an acquaintance that did his own personal financing of cars that he sold to people like my dad. 

I can also remember times when my mother wanted to buy new things for the house. We’d go to the furniture store, and she’d pick out what she wanted, and then she’d sign some papers. 

In a couple of weeks, we’d get the furniture. After that, every two weeks or so, a man from the furniture store would come to collect the payments from my parents.

It wasn’t until I went away to college that I learned about banking, and what products and services a bank offers. 

I think I was about 21 or 22 when I got my first checking account. I had to teach myself how to use it, and I made quite a few mistakes—overdrawing the account, and not understanding deposits and how they were credited. It was a real trial-and-error process learning how to balance that checkbook.

So, right about now you might be wondering how on earth this woman, who couldn’t balance a checkbook, ended up as a Senior Vice President at the nation’s central bank. Especially when I tell you that I graduated college from the University of Montana majoring in liberal arts.

I had a gentleman say to me once, “with that major and a quarter you might be able to buy a cup of coffee.” For a while, I believed him. Here I was out of school with no definitive plans for continuing my education and needing a job. I needed money to pay the bills. I heard the local bank was hiring, so I went in to apply for a part-time, drive-through teller position.

I had zero skills at being a teller, but I applied anyway. I didn’t get the job, but got a chance two weeks later to visit with a campus recruiter from that same bank who after our visit, decided I could be a corporate management trainee instead of a teller. Eventually, I did learn to be a very good teller, but most important, I found a business I loved.  That experience taught me a major lesson:

1. Never underestimate the power of one person to make a difference.

I ended up where I am in my career today because that one recruiter decided to take a chance on me, a liberal arts major with zero technical skills in banking but a lot of attitude and passion for learning.

It deserves saying, lots of other people and experiences brought me to this point, but had it not been for that one recruiter who encouraged me, I might have let that initial rejection as a teller turn me off from banking. 

Another lesson I learned in the course of my career is this one:

2. What you think you want most in life might not be the thing that will make you most happy.

I often think about whether I made the right decision to give up my dream of being a pediatrician. Then I think about how much I love most of my days in banking. I was CEO & President of two community banks, Franklin Bank here in the Twin Cities and, later City First Bank of DC in Washington, DC. We focused most of our work on improving our urban communities. We had key initiatives; build affordable housing, develop community facilities to help keep our youth safe and off the streets, build capacity of our social and charitable non-profit organizations, and foster small business entrepreneurship for businesses like many of you in this room. Every day, I enjoyed meeting with customers and prospects to learn all about how they turned their dream into a reality for them. It is a wonderful feeling to watch some of the businesses I have helped succeed.

This leads me to comment about a third lesson I learned, which is:

3. You are part of your community, and your community is part of you. That is why everybody must be involved in a community for it to be strong.

I learned this lesson of community support when my family moved to a housing project, and the single moms watched us in exchange for my dad taking them to doctor’s appointments in the neighborhood’s only car.

I learned it again when I moved to Montana to attend college on financial aid, and people who had never met an African-American reached out to help me.

I learned it again, and again, and again.

That is why I care about investing in my community, in the give-and-take that helps build strong families, schools, businesses, churches. I know that you as Kiwanis members value that as well.

I know Kiwanis members work to help build better communities and there are many ways that you do that. I am especially impressed by your K-Kids program, which I understand is the largest service organization for elementary school students, with more than 1,200 clubs and 42,000 members worldwide. Also, I commend Kiwanis on teaching core values such as Character, Leadership, Inclusiveness and Caring to your Builders Club’s members. These are the hallmarks of great leaders we will need to rely on to build our communities and keep them strong.

When the Federal Reserve Bank approached me about accepting the position of Senior Vice President of Community Development and Outreach, I was excited to be able to continue this work of community investment in a different way.

As many of you know, the Federal Reserve is the nation’s central bank. Our primary functions are ensuring macroeconomic stability through monetary policy, and ensuring financial stability through our regulation of the banking industry. We also provide financial services to other banks.

What you may not realize, however, is that each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks has a Community Development Department that provides information on the Community Reinvestment Act, community and economic development, and issues related to credit access, particularly in low- and moderate-income communities.  

The Community Development Offices also provide resource information, technical assistance, and regulatory guidance to community-based organizations, government entities, and a wide variety of other organizations engaged in community and economic development.

Some of the work of our Community Development department may be of interest to you as Kiwanis members.

Service is what my team at the Fed has been involved in for the last 15-20 years. Our mission is to promote economic growth and financial stability in low- and moderate-income communities through a range of activities.

One of the ways the Fed helps to do this is by providing technical assistance to organizations like Build Wealth Minnesota, which works to strengthen underserved communities by empowering families to build sustainable social and economic wealth.  Our Community Development department provided Build Wealth Minnesota with assistance in creating a business plan, obtaining funding, and establishing a Community Development Financial Institution.

Another way we work to fulfill our mission is through our work in Indian Country. The Minneapolis Fed’s Community Development Department has been engaged in promoting economic development in Indian Country for more than 15 years. Our emphasis is on helping tribes build the necessary infrastructures that support sustainable private business development in Native communities.

There are so many other things I could tell you about the work of the Fed, and there are many other instances of my own journey that I could share with you, but I’d like to have some time to answer your questions, so I’ll end with one brief last story. It’s about the meaning of service.

One of my favorites was told by Harry Emerson Fosdick, an American clergyman, early in the last century. He said:

“The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are made of the same water. It flows down, clear and cool, from the heights of Hermon and the roots of the cedars of Lebanon. The Sea of Galilee makes beauty of it, for the Sea of Galilee has an outlet. It gets to give. It gathers in its riches that it may pour them out again to fertilize the Jordan plain. 

“But the Dead Sea with the same water makes horror. For the Dead Sea has no outlet. It gets to keep.”

Thank you for listening to my story and I’m eager now to hear your comments and to answer any questions you have.

Good afternoon. I’m honoured to be with you this afternoon.When I am asked to speak to a group like yours, I spend a great deal of time worrying about what I might say that would be of value to you or that would be inspirational.

So I decided to take some good advice from one of the most important people in my life, my youngest daughter. When she was 10 years old, I was preparing for a similar event. She said, tell them a story. So, I am going toshare my story, and make some observations and share some of the lessons I’ve learned over the course of my career, as well as why I believe the work of the North Community Y is so very important.

So, there’s a lot of pressure on me to stand up here in front of you—to try to help make what I say worth your time.

I plan to keep my remarks short enough to leave time for your questions and comments.

The opinions I am expressing today are my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve.

For those of you I have yet to meet, I joined the senior leadership of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in July 2011 as Senior Vice President of the Bank’s Community Development and Regional Outreach Departments. I have spent most of my professional career as a banker, specifically working in community development financing.

I certainly didn’t start out to be a banker, however. In fact, I can’t remember ever visiting a bank when I was a child. My dream was to go to college and study to be a pediatrician.

For the first 20 or so years of my life, banks were not a part of my world at all. I grew up in the South, mainly in New Orleans, LA. My grandparents and parents were sharecroppers in rural Tylertown, Mississippi. My parents both worked manual labor types of jobs. We didn’t have a lot of money, and what we did have, we didn’t keep in a bank. It wasn’t that we had anything against banks; it’s just that we didn’t know anything about them. In the communities where I grew up, banks were non-existent. I cannot remember ever passing a bank within a 10-mile radius of my home.

If my mother and father needed a new car, or something for the house, they either saved for it or found other ways to finance the purchase.

I remember my father brought a new car home one day. I overheard him and my mother discussing what the car cost, and how much down payment my dad had to make, etc. The most interesting thing about that conversation was, I distinctly remember him talking about an individual, but not a bank.

What I learned later was that my father had an acquaintance who did his own personal financing of cars that he sold to people like my dad.

I can also remember times when my mother wanted to buy new things for the house. We’d go to the furniture store, and she’d pick out what she wanted, and then she’d sign some papers.

In a couple of weeks, we’d get the furniture. After that, every two weeks or so, a man from the furniture store would come to collect the payments from my mother and father.

It wasn’t until I went away to college that I learned about banking, and what services and products a bank can provide.

I think I was about 21 or 22 when I got my first checking account. I had to teach myself how to use it, and I made quite a few mistakes—overdrawing the account, and not understanding deposits and how they were credited. It was a real trial-and-error process learning how to balance that checkbook.

Right about now you might be wondering how on earth this woman who couldn’t balance a checkbook ended up as a Senior Vice President at the nation’s central bank. Especially when I tell you that I graduated college from the University of Montana majoring in liberal arts. I had a gentleman say to me once, “with that major and a quarter you might be able to buy a cup of coffee.” For a while, I believed him. Here I was out of school with no definitive plans for continuing my education and needing a job. I needed money to pay the bills. I heard the local bank was hiring, so I went in to apply for a part-time, drive-through teller position.

I had zero skills at being a teller, but I applied anyway. I didn’t get the job, but got a chance two weeks later to visit with a campus recruiter from that same bank who after our visit, decided I could be a corporate management trainee instead of a teller. I eventually did learn to be a very good teller, but most important, I found a business I loved.  That experience taught me a major lesson:

1. Never underestimate the power of one person to make a difference.

I ended up where I am in my career today because that one recruiter decided to take a chance on me, a liberal arts major with zero technical skills in banking but a lot of attitude.

It goes without saying, lots of other people and experiences brought me to this point, but had it not been for that one recruiter who encouraged me, I might have let that initial rejection as a teller turn me off from banking.

That’s why mentoring has always been important to me. It’s also important to my staff at the Federal Reserve Bank. One of my staff members is currently partnering with the Northside Achievement Zone to mentor one of their senior leaders. NAZ is a collaborative effort designed to build a culture of achievement in a specified geographical zone in North Minneapolis to ensure all youth graduate from high school college-ready. My staff member is providing leadership training and passing on the wisdom that comes from a distinguished career.

Another lesson I learned in the course of my career is this one:

2. What you think you want most in life might not be the thing that will make you most happy.

I often think about whether I made the right decision to give up my dream of being a pediatrician. Then I think about how much I love most of my days in banking. When I was CEO & President of Franklin Bank, we focused most of our work on improving our urban communities. We had 4 initiatives: build affordable housing; develop community facilities to help keep our youth safe and off the streets; build capacity of our social and charitable non-profit organizations; and foster small business entrepreneurship for businesses like many of you in this room. Every day, I enjoyed meeting with customers and prospects to learn all about how they turned their dream into a reality for them. It is a wonderful feeling to watch some of the businesses I have helped succeed.

This leads me to comment about a third lesson I learned, which is:

3. You are part of your community, and your community is part of you. That is why everybody must be involved in a community for it to be strong.

I learned this lesson of community support when my family moved to a housing project, and the single moms watched us in exchange for my dad taking them to doctor’s appointments in the neighborhood’s only car.

I learned it again when I moved to Montana to attend college on financial aid, and people who had never met an African-American reached out to help me.

I learned it again, and again, and again.

That is why I care about investing in my community, in the give-and-take that helps build strong families, schools, businesses, churches.

That’s also why I was eager to come back to Minneapolis from Washington, DC. In all my travels, I have seen very few communities that have pulled together individuals from all segments of society to work on a problem.

In so many communities, work is done in silos, with only one or two key leaders. By and large, that has not been my experience in the Twin Cities. In fact, this group gathered here today is an example of how we in the Twin Cities reach out in a purposeful way across all industries and sectors to get people involved in helping to build, sustain, and maintain communities and the families who live in them.

When the Federal Reserve Bank approached me about accepting the position of Senior Vice President of Community Development and Outreach, I was excited to be able to continue this work of community investment in a different way.

As many of you know, the Federal Reserve is the nation’s central bank. Our primary functions are ensuring macroeconomic stability through monetary policy, and ensuring financial stability through our regulation of the banking industry. We also provide financial services to other banks, several of whom are probably represented in this room.

What you may not realize, however, is that each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks has a Community Development Department that provides information on the Community Reinvestment Act, community and economic development, and issues related to credit access, particularly in low- and moderate-income communities.  

The Community Development Offices also provide resource information, technical assistance, and regulatory guidance to community-based organizations, government entities, and a wide variety of other organizations engaged in community and economic development.

Some of the work of our Community Development department aligns nicely with the work of the North Community Y. While the North Community Y focuses on children, the Fed’s Community Development department looks at the larger macroeconomic factors that affect children and families. We know, for instance, about the important role stable housing plays in the lives of children and families. My team at the Fed partnered with the Folwell Neighborhood Association right here in North Minneapolis to develop a housing market index that helps neighborhood groups prioritize housing stabilization activities.

We also know that it’s important for low- and moderate-income families to have access to banking facilities and credit, the kinds of things that weren’t available to my family when I was growing up in the South.

One of the ways the Fed helps to do this is by providing technical assistance to organizations like Build Wealth Minnesota, which works to strengthen underserved communities by empowering families to build sustainable social and economic wealth. Our Community Development department provided Build Wealth Minnesota with assistance in creating a business plan, obtaining funding, and establishing a Community Development Financial Institution.

So while the Federal Reserve Bank and the North Community Y are very different entities, they both contribute to the work of building strong communities. While the Fed focuses on macroeconomic issues at a high level, the North Community YMCA is down in the trenches every day, providing the kind of support and mentoring to young people that benefited me as a young person.

We know that one of the many components of successful outcomes for youth is the presence of consistent, caring adults in their lives. A child can never have too many caring adults in her village. The North Community Y is expanding the village for the young people of North Minneapolis, and as a North Minneapolis resident myself, I am pleased to be part of that village.

There are so many other instances of my journey that I could share with you; but, I’d like to end with one brief last story. It’s about the meaning of service.

One of my favorites was told by Harry Emerson Fosdick, an American clergyman, early in the last century. He said:

“The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are made of the same water. It flows down, clear and cool, from the heights of Hermon and the roots of the cedars of Lebanon. The Sea of Galilee makes beauty of it, for the Sea of Galilee has an outlet. It gets to give. It gathers in its riches that it may pour them out again to fertilize the Jordan plain.

“But the Dead Sea with the same water makes horror. For the Dead Sea has no outlet. It gets to keep.”

Thank you for listening to my story and I’m eager now to hear your comments and to answer any questions you have.

Thank you very much for inviting me to be here today. I am honored by the opportunity to speak to all of you.

PPL is an important organization that performs a critical role in helping people help themselves. Tonight we honor all people striving to improve their lives, but specifically we honor 12 very deserving individuals who have made huge strides in their efforts to overcome adversity—from staying in school through exceptionally tough times, from escaping homelessness and providing for your families, from learning new skills and working new jobs—all 12 of tonight’s honorees have displayed enormous amounts of passion and determination, and all of them—all of you—are inspiring to all of us.

My name is Dorothy Bridges, and I am the Senior Vice President of Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. I’ve been involved with banking for more than 30 years, but my path to and career in community development was informed by events in my childhood and in my adult life that have taught me the importance not only of perseverance in times of hardship but also the support we get from family, friends and even total strangers. I’d like to share with you this part of my past that has left an enduring impact on who I am today.

I was born in rural Tylertown, Mississippi, and I grew up mainly in New Orleans. My parents had eight children. I am the oldest. They both worked manual labor types of jobs, so they were away from home a lot. That meant I had a lot of responsibility at an early age.

Fortunately, there were always relatives around to help out. When I was little, we lived in a big old house that had been crudely converted into multiple apartments units.  My immediate family lived in one section, and we had cousins, aunts and uncles who lived in other sections. Upstairs, down the hall, in the front of the house—all over. Altogether, there must have been ½ dozen or so families living in this one house with only a couple of bathrooms and a shared kitchen.

Now, I don’t want to make this sound like some sob story, because it isn’t. Growing up surrounded by so much family was a gift. We were our own little community that was able to nurture each other, to cheer each other on, and to lean on each other—lean hard sometimes—when we needed to.

And there was one time in particular that we needed to lean really hard. That was in 1960, when my cousin, Ruby, who was one year older than me, was the first black child to integrate the all-white New Orleans school district.  Ruby’s story has received quite a lot of attention throughout the years. In fact, it’s been made into a Disney movie, and it’s also the subject of a couple of books — your children might have read them at school. Ruby’s experience was also depicted in a painting by the famous painter Norman Rockwell. It’s actually hanging in the White House.

Even today when I retell it, the story seems incredible and out-of-this-world. Ruby was six. To get to school, she had to be escorted through a screaming mob by federal marshals. Once she got inside, she spent every day alone with just her teacher, because no white parent would let his or her child in the same classroom as a little black girl. To say that year was hard for Ruby, my aunt and uncle, and other members of my family would be a tremendous understatement. It must have been brutal at times. I was only five, so I didn’t fully understand what was going on.  But I do remember one thing very clearly, and that is the support and encouragement Ruby got from our family, friends, and virtual strangers. 

People from all over our neighborhood—all over the world, in fact—sent Ruby and our family letters of encouragement. Letters of hope. They sent money. They even sent new dresses, which made me a little envious, until I followed her to school the next year.

That’s when I got a taste of what she’d experienced. Fortunately, that taste wasn’t as bitter as it could’ve been, because I also reaped the benefits of the sacrifices that Ruby and others had made. But when Ruby speaks about her life she talks about one particular thing that helped her get through the rough patches: having people in her corner.

There are other, quieter examples of community support from those days. We lived in a public housing project where there were a lot of single mothers. My dad had the only car, so he made a lot of trips to the store and the doctor. In return, the single mothers would look after us if my parents had to work. 

When I left New Orleans as a teenager and moved to Montana to go to college, I did not know what to expect. Of course, it was a very different community, as you can imagine.  But one thing was the same as in New Orleans—people went out of their way to support me. There were host families there who welcomed African-American students. At college I wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a pediatrician. Of course, after I graduated, I went in a completely different direction. That tends to happen in life: you start with one idea about what you want to do, and then you find yourself doing something else. A campus recruiter from a bank recommended that I enter the banking profession. So I did, and I’ve been in the banking business for more than 30 years now.

I often reflect on my early life and my adult life, and I ask myself how I managed to get where I am today. If there’s one thing my experiences have taught me, it is that the strength inherent within ourselves—as well as the support we get from others—is a powerful tool to propel ourselves forward. But I’ve also learned a few other things along the way, and I’d like to share those with you.

1) Be realistic and be prepared...and seize opportunities. Often, what you think you want most in life might not be the thing that will make you most happy. Personally, I often think about whether I made the right decision to give up my dream of being a pediatrician. But then I think about how much I love most of my days in banking.

2) Make a point to keep learning all the time. Take any opportunity that comes your way to learn something new. And apply what you learn—again and again. Some ideas won’t work, but lots will. And you’ll be prepared when new, often unimagined opportunities come your way. I don’t know where the saying comes from, that “whenever God closes a door he opens a window.” But it has sure been true for me and for a few other people.

Remember Oprah
If you doubt that, let me tell you a brief story about a baby born into poverty, and left with her grandmother because her unmarried parents couldn’t—or wouldn’t—care for her.

As a child of six she went to live with her mother in the big city, where she was abused and neglected. By 14, she was pregnant.

Now, no one would blame you for thinking this kid had hundreds of strikes against her and would never go anywhere. Even she thought she was a pretty bad bet.

But this kid had determination. When her father sent for her—and gave her a second chance—she wanted to show him that she could be better, that she could overcome her past. She decided to do well in school. And she read everything she could get her hands on—books became her passion.

She even mustered enough confidence to try public speaking—something that most people rank ahead of death as the thing they’re most afraid of. And yet she felt good enough about that to enter a contest, sponsored by local radio stations, to be Miss Fire Prevention.

Sure, she was nervous, and afraid of failing. But she also knew that if she didn’t try out, she’d never find out if she could do it. And she certainly would never win.

Well, all her speech practice paid off. She won—not because she was the cutest or the most talented, but because she could hold her own in the Q&A period.

Her prize? A watch and a tour of the station.

And during that tour, they let her read something in the studio, just to hear her voice on tape.

She was so good at it that the station hired her—a high school senior—to read the afternoon news. 

And that was how Oprah started in broadcasting.

As we all know, the baby nobody wanted now has a billion dollar plus empire. One she built pretty much all by herself.

Yes, she lucked into some situations along the way. But the thing I take away from her story is that she did all she could to be ready for opportunities, so she could make the most of them.

Her trajectory was and still is fueled by passion—a passion to try new things, do new things, explore new places.

We can’t all be Oprahs. But we can all cultivate the same passion for what we do.

If that passion gets you somewhere, that’s great. But it's more important to enjoy the journey. Even Oprah says that until she trained for the Marine Corps marathon a few years back, she had never consciously set a goal and worked toward it.

But she sure enjoyed the journey that has been her life up to now—taking advantage of what came along and building what she could to move from one situation to another.

We need to remember that, as we move from task to task, goal to goal. If we can’t look back at ourselves a year from now and say that we’ve gotten better, smarter, savvier—then we’d better stop and look at what barriers we might have created to stop that from happening.

3) Succeed because of who you are. Nothing is ever just an issue about your being too small or a woman or a person of color. Dig deeper. Find and attack the real issue head on. I’ve been an African American woman all my life...and a banker more than half my life. There have been times when being who I am was a disadvantage and times when it was an advantage. On balance, I’d have to say it has been an advantage.

4) Everything usually works out for the best if you let it, especially if you’re prepared

I don’t know where the saying comes from, that “whenever God closes a door he opens a window.”

The best way I know of to take advantage of life’s opportunities is by making a commitment to lifelong learning and education. Not to mention that such a commitment will prepare you, like Oprah, to take advantage of all the breaks that come your way. We do owe it to ourselves to be the most we can be.

Finally, 5) Give to Others

There are so many examples that I could relate to you, and so many stories that deserve to be told.  But, I’d like to end with one brief last story. It’s about the meaning of service.
The story was told by Harry Emerson Fosdick, an American clergyman, early in last century. He said:

“The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are made of the same water. It flows down, clear and cool, from the heights of Hermon and the roots of the cedars of Lebanon. The Sea of Galilee makes beauty of it, for the Sea of Galilee has an outlet. It gets to give. It gathers in its riches that it may pour them out.

The 12 of you have done so much already: you’ve become certified nursing assistants, you’ve secured jobs at hospitals, you’ve become childcare providers and pursued education.

And to do all of this, you’ve displayed the perseverance, courage, and desire necessary to overcoming many of the obstacles that life has put in front of you. There will be challenges in the future, but if you continue to exhibit these characteristics, you’ll continue to move forward.

Congratulations, all of you.

I am really pleased to be back in Minnesota and to be here with you this morning. For those of you whom I have yet to meet, I joined the senior leadership team at the Minneapolis Fed in July of this year as Senior Vice President of the Bank’s Community Development and Outreach departments.  I have spent most of my professional career as a banker, specifically working in community development financing.

As participants in today’s sessions you will have the opportunity to learn about the current issues and trends facing the industry from leaders and colleagues in the profession. Hopefully you will gain some valuable insights into best practices on issues such as Financial Literacy, Housing & Transportation Corridor Development, various state and federal housing bond programs AND key demographics and homeownership rates. All of these subjects are very integral to the success of EMHI’s work.

As you may know, the mission of the Fed’s Community Development unit is to support the economic growth of low- to moderate-income communities. My role as I view it is to serve as a liaison between the Fed and the low- to moderate -income communities we serve.  I hope to be able to increase both the visibility and transparency of the Bank’s work in this area, and to help strengthen our relationship with leaders in these communities.

I am delighted to be a part of today’s agenda and to continue to play an integral role in the important work of the EMHI organization. When EMHI first published its business plan in 2005, it set a goal to increase the number of emerging market homeowners in Minnesota by 40,000. This goal was set with a clear vision in mind: to eliminate the disparity in homeownership between whites and people of color in our state. We understood that creating equity is not only the right thing to do, but that it is the smart thing to do. It was a very smart business decision that helped to grow the economy.

Collectively and under EMHI’s leadership, a great deal has been accomplished over the past six years:

• We developed new pilot programs to meet the needs of emerging market homeowners.
• We developed and conducted industry education programs to help industry professionals enhance their relationships with Minnesota’s diverse populations.
• We delivered homebuyer education and financial literacy training to hundreds of potential homebuyers. In doing so, we helped increase access to credit, and provided people with knowledge that allowed them to make an informed decision about purchasing a home.   
• And, prior to the bursting of the housing bubble, we were seeing some narrowing of the homeownership rate gap for families of color.

However, it is difficult to ignore current market conditions, such as;

• Since 2007, there have been more than 100,000 foreclosures in Minnesota. And according to the most recent data from Lender Processing Services, 3.76% percent of mortgages were seriously delinquent (90 days past due or in foreclosure) last month in Minnesota.
• The credit market has tightened in recent years, which could make it difficult for some buyers to qualify for a mortgage loan.
• Home prices have continued to decline. Last month, the Minnesota Association of Realtors reported that the median home price in the Twin Cities had fallen to $155,000. It is estimated that nearly 1 in 5 mortgage-holders in Minnesota is currently underwater, meaning they owe more than the home is worth.

Although the current homeownership rate for people of color in Minnesota is 41 percent; 5 percentage points lower than in 2005, we should not consider this an indication that the EMHI efforts failed. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that the homeownership gap in Minnesota would be even larger in the absence of the dedication and efforts made by many of the organizations and individuals who are in this room today.

In spite of the housing crisis and current market conditions, the Emerging Market Homeownership Initiative has helped change the way we think about housing in Minnesota. It has opened the door for the development of new products and new programs that meet a double bottom-line (increased access to homeownership for many families and new customers for lenders and realtors).

I want encourage you not to lose sight of the principles behind the numbers. Homeownership is more than just a financial investment.

Homeownership is an investment in stability. And for families with children, homeownership is an investment in their academic achievement. People who own their own homes tend to move less frequently, and children who move less frequently also tend to do better in school.

• Last year, 79 percent of Minnesota 3rd graders who remained in the same school throughout the year met statewide reading standards. Among those who moved, only 60 percent did.
• The achievement gap is even wider when you look at 11th grade math scores. Last year, fifty-one percent of 11th graders who stayed in the same school met statewide standards. Among those who moved during the school year, only 12 percent did.    

Homeownership is also an investment in the physical health of children and families.

• Research shows that individuals who move less frequently are more likely to be in better health. This is true for both children and adults.
• In some communities, homeownership is also the key to a better neighborhood. And there is a growing body of evidence that shows that neighborhoods have a huge impact on individuals’ health-- ranging from access to parks and sidewalks to better air quality with fewer pollutants.  

Homeownership is an investment in individuals’ emotional well-being. Despite current market conditions, homeownership is still our cultural norm. It provides a sense of achievement, and a number of benefits that many of us take for granted.

• The ability to make alterations; to paint rooms in colors of your choice.
• The ability to allow family and friends stay with you for an extended period of time-- people who are not “on the lease.”   
• The ability to have a garden, to have a dog, or put up a yard sign in support of a cause that matters to you.
• The ability to say, “This is mine, and I own it.”

In summary, homeownership is a vehicle for eliminating disparities in opportunity.

This does not mean that homeownership is the best choice for everyone, but those who can afford or desire it should have the opportunity to make that choice. We can continue to create opportunities by giving people the knowledge and tools that they need. For many housing stakeholders, the decline in home prices has been a huge negative factor. But for first-time, low- to moderate-income homebuyers with good credit, it presents a window of opportunity.  

And so, you must remember the importance of your continued work to help ensure families of color are able to access affordable credit, to obtain sustainable homeownership opportunities, and to have an exciting story with a happy ending to share with others desiring to be homeowners. Your efforts are creating a revolving door that will help many families of color make the best long term housing decisions ensuring their financial growth and stability now and in the future and creating many happy moments and reflections for each of us. Congratulations for your accomplishments to date and I applaud and encourage your sustained commitment to the goals of the Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative and I look forward to working with many of you in the near future.

Thank you.