NY A.G. sues Evans Bank for Racial Discrimination
/The narrative of Buffalo's renaissance focuses almost exclusively on the development of the waterfront, and, to an extent, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Between Canalside's revitalization, HarborCenter construction and the medical job boom, the Queen City has quickly built a name for itself as a thriving community on the mend.
But the city's East Side, home to roughly 85,000 people who still battle urban decay and high crime rates on a daily basis, rarely finds itself included in that conversation.
"It's important," VOICE-Buffalo President Duane Diggs said, "that our entire city is refurbished."
And on Tuesday, the state's Attorney General took a trip to Western New York to announce a lawsuit that addresses the plight of the East Side.
Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, announced that his office has filed suit against Evans Bank, accusing it of systematically limiting loans in the East Side's African-American community based solely on their race. The lawsuit outlines discriminatory practices starting in 2009, coinciding with the end of the national economic recession— not to mention the very beginning of the waterfront and medical campus revival.
The discrimination by Evans Bank, the attorney general claims, has stunted the East Side's growth.
"They're deliberately engaging in traditional 'redlining,'" Schneiderman said, "with a substantial impact on the community."
According to a map presented by Schneiderman at a press conference on Tuesday, Evans Bank's trade zone has ignored most of the East Side of Buffalo, which would violate the Federal Fair Housing Act, the state's human rights law and the City of Buffalo's code. The attorney general accuses the bank of not only denying mortgage lending products, but also of intentionally advertising its products in newspapers inaccessible to the African-American community, as well as failing to place any branches or ATMs in this particular area.
