Despina Kouvaros President of East River Development Alliance
Long Island City
Bishop Mitchell G. Taylor
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: In addition to his role as a senior pastor, Bishop Mitchell G. Taylor is also the president and founder of the East River Development Alliance (ERDA), which is a non-profit organization he established in 2004 that would expand economic opportunities for public housing residents. It gives the residents tools and resources for economic success. ERDA serves about 2,000 residents a year and is creating models in Woodside and Astoria in western Queens, South Jamaica and the Pomonok Houses in Flushing.
ERDA has also chartered a new low-income credit union. It is a member-owned institution with low-income designation that also takes non-member deposits. According to Taylor, a credit union will differ from a big bank in that “people use a bank like they are leasing space to put their money in, while in a credit union, you will own the property.”
The benefits of the credit union would be that it would provide low-income residents with the criteria to finally be able to establish a credit account. They would also be able to finance projects for small businesses in low-income communities. The East River Development Alliance Federal Credit Union is set to open in April 2010.
Bishop Taylor has been a City Council Commissioner to the Civilian Complaint Review Board for Queens since November 2009.
JOB: Bishop Taylor is a senior pastor of Center of Hope International, a non-denominational church located near Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City. He has dedicated his pastoral career to servicing the community.
PERSONAL: Taylor was born in 1963 in New York City and has spent the last 40 years as a resident of Long Island City. His father had been a minister who had founded a church in the 1960s to serve the Queensbridge Housing Development. Taylor worked with him in an administrative position in the 1980s until he took over as senior pastor.
Taylor has also received various awards; two of his most recent include the New York Public Library’s 2005 Brooke Russell Astor award for his work with ERDA and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York’s 2008 Martin Luther King, Jr. award, for individuals who embody Dr. King’s spirit and ideals.
PROUDEST MOMENT: “One of the proudest moments is receiving the charter for the community credit union,” Taylor said. “Had you asked me before that, it would have been establishing ERDA.”
FAVORITE MEMORY: One of Taylor’s fondest memories was taking children from public housing for ‘on the road college trips.’ He remembered one boy being both shocked and enthusiastic that he would be able to go away to college and be able to hang out with his friends without his parents around.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “Creating sustainable budgets to do our work,” Taylor said.
INSPIRATION: “My inspiration was my father,” Taylor said. “He had a passion to really help poor people in public housing neighborhoods who were overlooked for so many years.”
