SVDP alternative to payday loans for the working poor
Can ground-up “banking for the poor” work in the United States? In Belleville, Ill., a Society of St. Vincent de Paul council thinks micro-financing, pioneered by Nobel prize winner Mohammed Yunus, can.
According to the National Catholic Reporter…
The council wanted to address the needs of the working poor, specifically by addressing payday loans. “These loans are really nothing more than legalized thievery,” said Pat Hogrebe, development director of the Belleville St. Vincent de Paul council.
Hogrebe’s council committee, Voice of the Poor, wanted to create an alternative to payday loans by creating a loan program that charges just 3 percent interest, and offers a flexible repayment schedule and finance education.
To get the program funded, the committee reached out to St. Vincent de Paul conferences — local groups usually attached to a parish and who work with a diocesan-wide council — and asked for funding and marketing support for this new loan program.
With $15,000 from conference donations, the St. Vincent de Paul council approached another organization, the Catholic and Community Credit Union, for help in implementing the program.
The origins of the Catholic and Community Credit Union would make Yunus proud.
For more on this hopeful story …
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Belleville, Ill.
Catholic and Communtiy Credit Union
Tags: microfinance, SVDP, Yunus
great idea! Now come to the far West, please. The loans on your checks places are everywhere in Reno! They seem to multiply in existance weekly. Getting to the credit union online is great, but you are supposing that the working poor have access to, and know how to use, the computer, and then, the internet. I find that the computer is still a ‘sacred icon’ used sparingly if possessed by young poor working families. And then, once possessed, are not maintained using ‘system tools’ and so on. I think that computer centers for access by everyone much like libraries are needed. Yes, libraries have computers, but you wait. You use for only one hour, and then, on the library’s time. Libraries are not open every day of the week here in Reno. So, now what? How does one make computers available and such that each might learn how to use it well? Vincentians are fond of the story that teaches “Give a person a sandwich and you feed that person for a day. Teach persons how to fish and they can feed themseleves for life.”2 Comments
I don’t know the answer? Anyone????gh
But if they do not have a fishing pole or access to a lake, knowing how to fish is not enough.
So yes, Georgia VIncentians must together work for access to computers for those on the margins.
PS I don’t think micro financing as such relies on computers nor does the Bellville program.
great idea! Now come to the far West, please. The loans on your checks places are everywhere in Reno! They seem to multiply in existance weekly.
Getting to the credit union online is great, but you are supposing that the working poor have access to, and know how to use, the computer, and then, the internet.
I find that the computer is still a ‘sacred icon’ used sparingly if possessed by young poor working families. And then, once possessed, are not maintained using ‘system tools’ and so on.
I think that computer centers for access by everyone much like libraries are needed. Yes, libraries have computers, but you wait. You use for only one hour, and then, on the library’s time. Libraries are not open every day of the week here in Reno.
So, now what? How does one make computers available and such that each might learn how to use it well?
I don’t know the answer? Anyone????gh
Vincentians are fond of the story that teaches “Give a person a sandwich and you feed that person for a day. Teach persons how to fish and they can feed themseleves for life.”
But if they do not have a fishing pole or access to a lake, knowing how to fish is not enough.
So yes, Georgia VIncentians must together work for access to computers for those on the margins.
PS I don’t think micro financing as such relies on computers nor does the Bellville program.