Financial Center Brings ‘Hope’ to Maywood

In a move both symbolic and practical, the black-run banking consortium Operation Hope celebrated the opening of its second banking center Friday in tiny Maywood, a city that is 93% Latino and previously had no bank.

“With 40% of [Los Angeles] Latino and 30% of our borrowers Latino, we wanted to make sure we weren’t doing to them what had been done to us--discriminate,” said Operation Hope founder and Chairman John Bryant. “We wanted to invest in a majority-Latino community.”

The ribbon-cutting in Maywood followed the organization’s fifth bankers’ bus tour, which carried about 300 bankers--including Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Andrew C. Hove--through underserved neighborhoods.

“Much has been accomplished, but much more needs to be done,’ Hove said. “This kind of center brings the banks back to the community as partners.”

The bus tour, which Bryant started after the 1992 riots, was co-sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. It was designed to enhance investment and break down stereotypes of the inner city as economically stagnant.

“It made a big difference to me,” said James W. Lokey, president and chief executive of Downey Savings & Loan Assn. in Newport Beach, among the banks that sponsor Operation Hope’s central Los Angeles banking center. “I was very surprised at the quality [of the homes] and pride in ownership.”

Lokey said his institution, which long focused on home mortgage lending, will now be more likely to expand small-business lending in the inner city.

Bryant founded the organization after the riots to bring badly needed capital to black communities. On Friday, he guided one of seven busloads of bankers through central, South-Central and southeast Los Angeles, pointing out tidy homes with manicured yards and dozens of lots that had been razed by arson during the strife and since rebuilt.

He also made sure to point out the check-cashing businesses that dot dozens of street corners--often charging high interest.

The Maywood center, like its sister in central Los Angeles, will assist with home and business lending,

provide a computer center, credit education and entrepreneurial training.

The Maywood center will also provide classes in Spanish and money-wiring services to Latin America--important to the largely immigrant community.

The center was funded with $1.4 million from Home Savings of America, which recently announced that it will merge with Washington Mutual. Home Savings CEO Charles Rinehart said inner-city residents are good customers for banks, especially if they are guided through the banking process by an intermediary such as Operation Hope.

“It teaches people how to use banking services and takes the intimidation and complexity out of it,” he said. “It is not charity. It is not a handout. It’s very good business in the community.”