The American Prospect, June 5, 2023, Predatory Lending’s Prey Of Color
MS. LILLIE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN subject to a predatory loan. She worked at a hospital for 14 years, retiring at 65. Her pay was “reasonable.” For the most part, she was supporting herself. Still, she would find herself needing a boost for necessities, like rent or other bills. And one bad loan set her down a path.
That path was one of few offered to Lillie, and the least distressing one that she would consider. This is by design—not a blind spot of the system, but an essential facet. Predatory lenders and other alternative financial service providers (AFSPs) occupy a space left by traditional banking. As commerce and financial services have moved online, brick-and-mortar bank branches across the U.S. have fallen from 36 per 1,000 adults to 30. From 2017 to 2021, 9 percent of bank branches closed. Of those, a third were in majority-minority communities, per the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
