NYS Community Equity Agenda 2019 Highlights

For the 2019 NYS legislative session, a statewide coalition of 25 community, labor, civil rights, and faith-based groups, along with community-based financial institutions, came together to advance the NYS Community Equity Agenda. The platform sets forth practical steps New York can immediately take to ensure economic justice and self-determination in New York’s low-income and immigrant communities and communities of color.

During the 2019 legislative session, coalition members:

• Educated elected officials on the need for bold solutions to systemic racial and economic injustice. We held three legislative briefings and a lobby day in Albany. We also met directly with twenty-two legislative offices, the Governor’s Office, the Department of Financial Services, and the NYS Attorney General’s Office.
• Built unprecedented support for community-based financial institutions, including mission-driven community development credit unions. Sixty-five organizations from across the state called on state leaders to finally fund the NYS CDFI Fund – to invest in low-income communities and communities of color not adequately served by mainstream banks – laying important groundwork for next year’s state budget negotiations. For more information, check out this op-ed in City Limits.
• Kept predatory financial services out of New York. The coalition mobilized and stopped a dangerous bill that would have deregulated New York check cashers and opened the door to predatory practices
• Played a key role in the introduction of new legislation to advance economic justice in New York, including a bill to create a New York State Worker Ownership Center, and another to vastly strengthen New York’s Consumer Protection Law.