Friday, January 17, 2025

Hurricane Helene Devastated Western North Carolina - SECU Could Easily Help Members Much More, But Hasn't...

Hurricane watches for Helen in Florida   

Western North Carolina - Fall, 2024.

Just to refresh your memory: The storm and its aftermath caused 1,400 landslides and damaged over 160 water and sewer systems, at least 6,000 miles of roads, more than 1,000 bridges and an estimated 126,000 homes. Some 220,000 households [!!] are expected to apply for federal assistance.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed an executive order to increase unemployment benefits for workers who are impacted by Hurricane Helene and are struggling to make ends meets. The Asheville metro area unemployment rate has doubled to 6.1%, in Mitchell County unemployment reached 8.9%, highest in the State. 

New Gov. Josh Stein’s inaugural address stressed hurricane recovery as the #1 issue facing North Carolina in 2025.

So, we've been "arguing" now for a couple of years about the "New/New" philosophy adopted by the SECU Board in 2021. That discussion has centered around risk-based lending, open membership, local vs. global, people before profits, providing service well above "industry standard".
 
http://www.buckleshop.com/images/4571.jpg Well, here's another unicorn opportunity for the SECU Board! A chance to once again distinguish and demonstrate that at "SECU - There Is A Difference" - helping members in North Carolina not only in unique ways, but with extraordinary care, forethought, and concern (as you did in the past!)
 
SECU has hundreds of thousands of members in Western North Carolina. Do you think that any of them may have lost a spouse, house, job, or were injured as a result of the hurricane? Yes they did!  Thousands of your fellow members were hit hard, some wiped out completely. Do you think any of them may have been late on a bill or completely missed a payment?  If so, what do you think will happen to their credit scores - for the next seven years? 
 
✅ With this disaster, you now have a terrible, real life, real people example of why risk-based lending is discriminatory and unjust. These Western North Carolina SECU members did nothing wrong! Hurricane Helene was a natural disaster and "act of God", yet thousands of our fellow members will be unjustly penalized by the SECU Board via higher "RBL" rates on their loans - for the next seven years. That sound fair to you? Would you, as a fellow SECU member, fix this problem if you could?
 
The good news is that the SECU Board can fix this unfair discrimination by simply rescinding  risk-based lending for all the members in Western North Carolina right now.  And give our fellow members a hand up, instead of another slap in the face . Don't we all want to help our fellow members in this simple way? Won't cost you a penny (far less than a Super Bowl ad!). Easy to do!  Why wouldn't the SECU Board want to help Western North Carolina?

✅ The SECU Board even includes a member of Governor Stein's Cabinet - a director who can make the motion! If it's good enough for "the Gov", it ought to be good enough for the SECU Board! Let's stop twiddling our thumbs, watching "our screens" and instead look up and help "our folks" in Western North Carolina!
 
😎 Hope this post makes the members of SECU - you - care enough to ask for action
 
... another chance to be the real thing... a credit union!