Page 17 - Contact Magazine: 2nd Quarter, 2016

Changing Along With Detroit

In the late 1960s, however, the city descended into riots and
the manufacturing sector began to slow down, resulting in the
beginnings of a population exodus from Detroit. Not surprisingly,
there was a significant impact to credit unions.

“The biggest impact has been that most of our real estate lend-
ing was in the city of Detroit,” said Trudeau. “At one point, we
probably had 80–85 percent of our real estate loans or mortgage
in the city of Detroit. When the property values plummeted as
they did, we were taking very, very large hits as a result.”

The first official home of Detroit Teachers CU at 1737 Calvert Zeal’s Outland said, “As the plight of Detroit happened, a lot of
Avenue. At bottom right of this page, one of the credit union’s the little [credit unions] closed and the larger ones moved their
modern Detroit branches, reflecting its current name of headquarters out. But they would still leave a branch at that
Michigan First CU location [in Detroit proper] for as long as they could; if it was
viable, they would keep it there.”
something to do with that too, because they already had an
organized structure and were familiar with banding together But Poulos rejected the idea that those institutions deserted Detroit.
to make a difference.”
“What happened is that the credit unions reacted to the soci-
Because of Detroit’s position as the hub of American manu- etal changes around them,” he said. “A lot of them started to
facturing, it’s no surprise that the city was home to a booming expand their fields of membership, because if an auto plant
credit union industry, he added. closed or lost shifts and people left to go take other jobs, they
might have left the credit union. So there was a time when
“In Detroit, the “In Detroit, the population credit unions might have realized ‘We need to be a lot broader
population just just exploded to get close to in terms of who we serve in order to survive and do well.’”
exploded to get two million,” he said. “And in
those days, it was just block Poulos said that Detroit Teachers
did the same thing, expanding
close to two million.” after block of single family beyond just teachers to serve
entire school districts, as well
homes broken up every now as colleges and universities.

and then by churches, so there Motor City Co-op CU calls
Clinton Township home these
were a lot of faith-based organizations, and some of those would days, but when the credit
union was founded in 1948,
be credit unions.” it operated out of the living
room of a home on Parker
Dean Trudeau, CEO at Romulus-based Public Service CU (PSCU), Street in Detroit before
which was originally chartered to serve Wayne County employ- moving in 1955 to offices
ees, noted that one reason his credit union grew so much off of Van Dyke Street.
in the mid-20th century was because the city was such a When the credit union
booming place. moved to its current
headquarters in 1991,
“Detroit and Wayne County were the largest employers in the the move was more
area other than the automotive industry for a long time,” he about growth than
said. “Up until the late 1980s, Wayne County was one of the top any changes in
three employers, and the city of Detroit was in the top five. That Detroit, said CEO
was our basic membership.” As the city and the region grew, he Steven Andrews.
said, so did the credit union.

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