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Founder & CEO, Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA)
Bruce Marks started in 1985 transforming the area of housing rights as a union activist for the Hotel Workers Union in Boston, where he was instrumental in negotiating the first ever housing trust fund. This housing trust fund resulted in the first amendment to the Taft-Hartley Act in over 25 years and marked the first time a local union changed America’s major labor law. Marks moved from union activist to Executive Director of the Union Neighborhood Assistance Corporation (UNAC). At UNAC, Marks used his finance and organizing experience to be the first to expose predatory lending and its devastating impact on the housing market and working class people, and, in fact, coined the term “predatory lending.” Marks led the fight against the predatory lending practices of major New England banks. For two and a half years, Marks and UNAC researched the predatory lending practices of Fleet Bank, and exposed these practices to the public. After a relentless campaign, Fleet Bank yielded and agreed to commit eight billion dollars to lending in low- and moderate-income communities and one hundred and forty million dollars to UNAC to fund an unprecedented mortgage product. Marks subsequently founded the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America to expand grassroots advocacy and homeownership nationally.
Under Marks’s leadership, NACA has garnered commitments of over $20 billion for the
best mortgage product in America. The NACA mortgage product has no down payment, no closing costs or fees and an interest rate always below market rate. In response to the mortgage crisis, Marks’s strong advocacy allowed NACA to obtain legally binding contracts with all of the nation’s major servicers and investors and enabled NACA to create its HomeSave program, which assists struggling borrowers in restructuring their mortgages and avoiding foreclosure. NACA has established its American Dream events, which are five-day events that bring homeowners and all of the nation’s major servicers and investors under one roof, often providing same-day solutions. NACA has done over 140 events with over 500,000 affordable solutions. NACA now has 47 offices throughout the country and a counseling center. NACA continues to grow the number of offices and expand its services nationwide being the largest HUD certified housing counseling organization in the United States.
Bruce Marks was named the Boston Globe’s Bostonian of the Year for 2007. In a note to readers, Boston Globe editor Doug Most stated, “Bruce Marks has made his share of enemies in his relentless push to get banks to provide fairer loans. But what is inarguable is that his tactics kept many people in their homes and convinced some mighty big lenders to change their ways. He’s showed how one very determined person can make a difference.” The Boston Globe reports many homeowners have found a way out of the mortgage crisis through Marks’ “relentless advocacy and sensible innovation.”
Marks was also featured in the New York Times as “The Homebuyer’s Champion,” in addition to being profiled three times in the Wall Street Journal and in other national publications. NACA is in the forefront of the fight in providing affordable homeownership as new roadblocks and financial predators emerge. NACA stands alone with its purchase program in achieving the dream of affordable homeownership for working people and people subjected to systemic racism.
Bruce Marks has an M.B.A. in finance from New York University and a B.A. in
Economics from the University of Connecticut. He was an L.B.J Scholar for Congressman Stewart McKinney (R-CT). He worked as a Congressional Liaison for the Department of Energy in Washington DC and as a regulator for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Domestic Applications.