Homewreckers by Aaron Glantz

Author:Aaron Glantz
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

COMMUNITY GROUPS TRIED to talk to OneWest about the foreclosures and lack of community investment, but their concerns were brushed aside. Senior leaders at the bank would say, “Hey, we’re working on that. Don’t worry, we’re working on that,” recalled Orson Aguilar, then president of the Greenlining Institute, an advocacy nonprofit based in Oakland that pushes banks to increase lending in minority neighborhoods.

A soft-spoken advocate who speaks with the warmth and gentle manner of a practiced politician, Aguilar had met with hundreds of banks as head of Greenlining. Usually, he said, the best results could be found not through angry protests but in quiet meetings in boardrooms. So, he arranged for a discussion with Steve Mnuchin at OneWest’s Pasadena headquarters. The bank was still located in the same sand-colored structure that IndyMac had been, where desperate depositors had wound around the block. Aguilar’s goal was to get Mnuchin to agree to specific goals for home mortgage lending, small business investment, and antiforeclosure measures. But Mnuchin didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to see how much money Aguilar wanted personally. He seemed to think Aguilar wanted charity or a bribe.

Mnuchin “kept saying, ‘How much money do you want? How much money do you want for your members?’” Aguilar recalled.

Aguilar replied that he didn’t want money for himself or a donation for the groups that made up his coalition. “Mr. Mnuchin, respectfully, we’re here to talk about foreclosure issues—”

Mnuchin cut him off. “Stop. Just stop. Just tell me a number,” he said.

When Aguilar didn’t provide one, the meeting ended. “I have never had a meeting with a banker where the banker acted the way he did,” Aguilar said. The sit-down with Mnuchin “stemmed from our frustration with not getting answers from the bank on issues we care about.” Now here was Mnuchin in the flesh, and he still refused to discuss them. It was the only face-to-face Aguilar had with Mnuchin—“the only time he made himself available.” To Aguilar, it seemed that Mnuchin simply didn’t care.

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