Self-Help Expands Its Footprint With Big Plans on the Horizon

The Self-Help community development credit unions based in Durham, N.C., have been expanding their footprints this year from Chicago to Miami.

And over the next two years, Self-Help Credit Union ($1.8 billion in assets, 91,668 members as of March 31) plans to open its first branch in Georgia and two branches in Charleston, S.C.

NCUA data showed Self-Help CU ended 2022 with 38 locations, an increase of two for the year. It had 23 locations in North Carolina, giving it the fifth-biggest credit union footprint in the Tar Heel State. It also had eight branches in Florida, six in South Carolina and one in Virginia in Galax, in the state’s west and home of the annual Old Fiddler’s Convention.

In January, it expanded in Florida by opening its first branch in the Miami area. Its other Florida offices are in Jacksonville, Orlando and Tallahassee.

The Self-Help organization also includes its sister credit union, Self-Help Federal Credit Union ($2.1 billion in assets, 101,103 members), and its policy arm, the Center for Responsible Lending.

Martin Eakes is president/CEO of both credit unions, and they share their home office in Durham. The federally chartered credit union has another corporate office in Oakland, Calif., the state with the bulk of its branches.

Besides sharing the office location in Durham, the credit unions operate in separate states.

In addition to its corporate offices, Self-Help FCU had 35 locations at the end of 2022, a net increase of four locations from the end of 2021. It had 22 branches in California, eight in Illinois (all in the Chicago area), five in Washington state and two in Wisconsin.

In March, the federally chartered credit union opened its ninth Illinois branch in Oak Park, nine miles west of downtown Chicago.

Meanwhile, the state-charted Self-Help CU plans to open a branch in Atlanta in the spring of 2024 and two branches in the Charleston, S.C., area in late 2024 or early 2025. Each will have the equivalent of three to four full-time employees.

Ron Wiley, a Self-Help CU regional director, said the credit union recognized its branch presence in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida left a big gap.

“None in Georgia,” Riley said. “It’s always been our desire to have a presence there.”

And it chose to open its first Georgia branch in Atlanta, which Riley said has the widest racial wealth gap of any American city with a population over 100,000.

The credit union recently closed on a location in Atlanta’s West End, an historically black neighborhood. The branch will be within a mile of the Atlanta University Center Consortium of historically black institutions of higher education: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College and the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Kerri Smith is president of Self-Help CU’s South Carolina region, which now includes branches in Greenville and Columbia. She said many of the people who most need support from financial institutions find themselves under-banked or un-banked.

And in fast-growing areas like Charleston and Atlanta many people are finding soaring home prices are sending the possibility of ownership further and further from their grasp.

“Our mission is to promote and protect economic opportunity for all,” Smith said.

Smith and Wiley said cities like Atlanta and Charleston have grown increasingly affluent.

“Everyone is not sharing in that prosperity,” Smith said.

One sign in the city of Charleston has been in its core peninsula, which went from two-thirds black in 1980 to two-thirds white by 2010. Much of the metro area’s population growth spread north to Mount Pleasant near the coast and west toward Summerville, 25 miles inland. But home prices even in the metro’s edges have been skyrocketing in recent years.

“The racial wealth gap in that area is widening,” she said.

Smith said Self-Help CU has programs designed to help low-income households and minorities in those types of areas. For example, its first-time homebuyer’s assistance can allow homeowners:

• To avoid paying private mortgage insurance, which add significantly to borrowing costs.
• To borrow up to 105% of the purchase price to allow them to cover inspections and closing costs.
• To use multiple layers of down payment assistance. Some hospitals provide up to $10,000 in down payment grants for employees, and a homeowner might get grants from community organizations.

Smith said most financial institutions don’t allow down payment assistance or allow just one source.

Meanwhile, Self-Help CU is exploring ways to help before the branches open. In Charleston, it is talking with developers involved with building low-income housing.

“There are ways we can support the community even before we get the retail facilities open,” she said.