Every year, thousands of activists gather for the annual Netroots Nation conference. In August, they converged on Atlanta, Georgia – a state where residents are freed from the payday debt trap, but still struggling to eliminate the car-title debt trap. Attendees would find themselves in the payday loan Pit of Despair, thinking about escaping from the deep financial hole of …
Los Angeles County Takes Stand Against Predatory Payday Lending Practices
Click here for the full blog post from California Reinvestment Coalition! Putting finishing touch on Pit of Despair- thanks to Americans for Financial Reform for sharing it! On Thursday, September 8th, the Chair of the LA County Board of Supervisors, Hilda L. Solis, hosted a press conference with LA community leaders where she talked about the financial harms caused by …
New Mexicans learn how to Be A Rule Changer in Gallup
New Mexico- On April 9th, the Pit of Despair was hosted by the South West Center for Economic Integrity at the Gallup Convention Center in the city in the center of the Navajo Nation. Sharkie, a predatory payday lender, found an accommodating habitat in the desert town of Gallup. How can a shark thrive in the desert? By swimming through …
The Pit of Despair in Atlanta, Georgia
It was perhaps an appropriately rainy day in Georgia as Rise Up Georgia and Jobs with Justice brought out the Pit of Despair in Atlanta, helping consumers visualize the debt trap that drowns so many payday bowers in debt. People lined up to fall into the pit and to tell the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to finally propose a rule …
Baylor University Students: We Need To Close The Payday Lending Pit Of Despair
The Waco, TX, CBS affiliate KWTX reported on the Pit of Despair at Baylor University, focusing their attention on students who take out payday loans to help cover student debt repayment. It was also highlighted as the Waco Tribune-Herald’s photo of the day. Students brought out the Pit of Despair, a visual depiction of the payday lending cycle of debt …
Texas Catholic Conference: Close the Pit of Despair Caused by Payday Loans
Pictured above: Bishop Placido Rodriguez of the Lubbock Diocese and Father Martin Piña pray for those caught in the payday lending debt trap. [Lubbock, TX] At a forum sponsored by the West Texas Organizing Strategy on March 9th, clergy and community members were appalled to learn that the city of Lubbock has thirty-three payday and auto title lenders catching people …
The Pit of Despair in Birmingham
The Pit of Despair was set up at an action in the Birmingham neighborhood of Ensley, which is checkered with payday loan storefronts. City councilwoman Lashunda Scales, Joe Dean of the Baptist Church of the Covenant, and Mary Jones of the Greater Birmingham Ministries joined Alabama Arise and Alabama Appleseed in hoisting their neighbors out of, jumping over, and falling …
The Pit of Despair Opens Up in Indianapolis
At Purdue University’s Indianapolis campus, the Sociology Club of IUPUI and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group asked students what they thought of the hundreds of payday lenders that checker their state, ensnaring their neighbors with an average annual interest rate of 391%, according to a report from National People’s Action. At those rates, payday, car-title, and high-cost installment loans …
The Pit of Despair goes to Michigan
AFR’s two-dimensional art piece “the Pit of Despair” traveled to Detroit for Michigan United’s annual conference. This “street theater” illustrates the hazard that short-term, high interest loans present to working families. The conference attracted over 400 attendees including labor groups, and legislators such as US Representative Debbie Dingell and a multitude of state senators and representatives. Detroit passersby were offered …