Banks are going the extra mile to help New Yorkers.

The Superintendent of New York State's Banking Department credits the Neighborhood Housing Services with keeping the city vibrant.

In her speech at the Regional Interagency Committee meeting on May 26, Diana L. Taylor noted that NHS' home ownership assistance programs help revitalize poor neighborhoods and allow New Yorkers in the low and middle-income brackets to get ahead.

Taylor praised such initiatives as homebuyer education, home maintenance training and closing cost assistance for their success in both saving the existing housing stock and protecting homebuyers from predatory lending institutions.

"NHS helps banks and insurers see poor neighborhoods through a different lens," she said. "[With NHS's help], banks are providing low or no interest loans. This allows complicated projects, such as childcare facilities and neighborhood shopping centers, to move forward. The banks also continue to innovate their mortgage products: offering free checking accounts, installment loans and counseling. Thanks to NHS, New York banks are going the extra mile in identifying new opportunities in under-served neighborhoods."

According to Taylor, assistance with homeownership is particularly important in New York, where a large population of new immigrants has unique financing needs. Greater flexibility in lending options, including help with down payments, allows these people to buy real estate, maintaining the multi-cultural fabric of the city.

"Our city is not homogenous and it never will be," Taylor said. "New York is five boroughs made up of hundreds of little towns. The underpinning is our infrastructure, so the need for affordable housing is a given here, but for many it's only a dream. So it's hugely important that [New York's finance community] continues to help NHS."

Taylor also mentioned the importance of saving distressed neighborhoods, instead of just building on top of them.

"Planners used to feel that the only way to fight urban blight was by bulldozing old buildings and creating new ones," she said. "What NHS does is save poor neighborhoods house by house and block by block."