By Matthew R. Lee

NEW YORK, June 9 -- Lower income communities of color have the most mortgage foreclosures, and the fewest bank branches, new studies of New York City demonstrate. There are 29,729 pre-foreclosures in New York City according to May 5, 2014 data purchased from RealtyTrak.com by two state legislators, here.

  Citywide, 80% of these foreclosures are in communities of color. In The Bronx and Queens the percentage or targeting rises to 93%.

  The lenders with the most pre-foreclosures in New York City are Wells Fargo with 1,273; US Bank with 1,116; JP Morgan Chase with 1,043; Deutsche Bank with 760; and HSBC with 741. Where is the Federal Reserve in all this: asleep at the switch again?

  Meanwhile while these big banks move to close branches -- the most recent example is US Bank closing 13 branches of 93 acquired from Royal Bank of Scotland, on which Inner City Press reported here -- midsized institutions simply bypass lower income communities of color.

  Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch, along with other NCRC members, is looking into Valley National Bank's proposed acquisition of 1st United in Florida. Fair Finance Watch has filed two comments to date with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, first with this lending pattern:

  In 2012 in the New York City MSA for refinance loans, Valley National made 2152 such loans to whites and only 38 to African Americans -- entirely of keeping with the demographics and demographics of home ownership in the New York City MSA. Valley National denied 67% of such applications from African Americans, versus only 34.5% of such application from white.

  For home purchase loans in the NYC MSA in 2012, Valley National made 69 such loans to whites, only one to an African American and only two to Latinos, for which it had a denial rate of 62.5% versus only 36.6% for whites.

  For home improvement loans in the NYC MSA, Valley National made 26 such loans to whites, only one to an African American and only two to Latinos, for which it had a denial rate of 50% versus only 21.9% for whites.

  On June 8, Fair Finance Watch filed a second comment, including that:

Valley National has branches only below 88th Street in Manhattan (in which, intriguingly, a "Yellowbrick Real Estate Capital" breaks into the top five in pre-foreclosures).

  Valley National has no branches in Harlem, Washington Heights or The Bronx, predominantly African American and Latinos, low and moderate income areas.

  In Queens, it's Middle Village and Kew Gardens. In Brooklyn, Valley National's branches are along Ocean Parkway and in Bay Ridge. What about East New York, Brownsville, Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvesant?

  Meanwhile we are sorry to say, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, rather than provide the documents Inner City Press requested under the Freedom of Information Act, tried to cancel the entire FOIA request by claiming to mis-understand one part of it, as stated in a June 5 telephone call with the OCC's Rosalye Settles.

 Inner City Press has not yet received a single one of the requested documents, all of which should be provided during the comment period (set to expire on June 20).

  Such branch redlining impacts all New Yorkers, not just homeowners. So to the lack of legal representation for tenants in housing court, a campaign for which we will next be covering. Watch this site.