Today’s Good News: Shorebank Succeeds as “Bank with Heart”
Chicago’s suburban Daily Herald features a story about Shorebank, a product of 70’s idealism about investing in the inner city which has flourished and expanded over 34 years.ShoreBank promotes everything from redevelopment to minority businesses to environmentally responsible lending. It has branched out from its Chicago roots to Cleveland, Detroit, the Pacific Northwest and abroad, where its consulting arm Shorebank International Ltd. provides loans to budding entrepreneurs and mortgages to homeowners in Africa, Asia and East Europe. When I lived in Chicago, nonprofits I was involved in banked at Shorebank. I appreciated their in-bank displays about the work of their nonprofit clients, networking parties they hosted, and helpful free seminars on things like grantwriting.
While acknowledging mixed results in its financial backing of minority-owned businesses, its impact on helping to rehabilitate impoverished neighborhoods on the city’s South and West sides is unquestioned. It has financed the rehabilitation and purchase of about 50,000 rental housing units by helping small developers, about half of them black, who promise to fix up abandoned or run-down properties.
“It’s for sure that we have improved the quality of the housing stock,†said the 66-year-old Houghton, ShoreBank’s president.
One of the founders lamented the fact that more such banks haven’t sprung up, but there are 61 others around the country.
Leave a Comment