Project GREEN Calls For Local Day of Action Against CFPB Move to Gut Landmark Reform To Protect Borrowers
GRAND RAPIDS, MI. – Project GREEN will launch a local day of action on Monday, August 19, 2019, marking the date that important payday lending protections would have gone into effect.
The public is invited to join in.
Attendees will gather for a press conference and prayer, at 11 a.m. in front of a payday - lending store owned by one of the biggest payday lenders in the country.
At this event in front of Advance America, 353 Fuller Ave NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503, attendees will hear first - hand accounts from a former employee and a former customer of payday lenders that will talk about the harms they witnessed in a debt trap that took months to escape.
Attendees will join hands in prayer for those hurt by these triple - digit - interest loans.
In addition to a social media blitz and important phone calls on this day, Project GREEN will also be hosting an evening panel with "tacos and real talk."
This evening panel will be held from 5:30 until 6:30 p.m., Monday, August 19, 2019 at LifeQuest Urban Ministries Café, 1115 Alto Ave SE.
Former payday loan store workers and managers will tell Project GREEN what it's like to watch these loans entrap people in high - cost debt cycles.
At this free event, audience members will also hear from former borrowers, and have the opportunity to join Project GREEN's national appeal for better protections for borrowers.
The average annual interest rate for payday loans in the United States is 391% although in more than 17 states, many of them home to consumers of color, the APR is even higher.
Payday lenders drained over a half billion dollars from Michigan over five years, entrapping millions of families in long - term debt that leads to great financial difficulty.
The Project Green Day of Action calls to account the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for gutting the first landmark payday lending reform, which was developed under the previous administration and would have taken effect that day (Monday, August 19, 2019.)
"Borrowers have described the debt trap, in their own words, as 'a hole that you can't get out of', 'soul - crushing', and a 'living hell', as Diane Standaert, a CRL EVP testified at a Payday Loan Regulation hearing on Capitol Hill in April, 2019.
Standaert continued, "And research has shown time and time again, that these high - cost lending storefronts are disproportionately situated in Black and Latino communities, even when they have the same or higher incomes than white communities."
As noted by Charlene Crowell in her Grand Rapids Times commentary on the hearing in May, 2019, "As consumers suffer financially, it's a different story for payday lenders: $4.1 billion in fees every year in the 33 states that allow these debt traps, according to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL).
"The hearing occurred as the current Administration was seeking to permanently reverse a payday rule that was developed over five years of public hearings, research and comments that sought the input of consumers, financial institutions and other stakeholders."
Charlene Crowell is the Communications Deputy Director with the Center for Responsible Lending.
As she reports, "Announced by the first Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director, the rule would require lenders to determine if a consumer could repay the loan, also known as the ability - to - repay standard. With a new CFPB Director, the rule's suspension was accompanied by an announcement of an intent to begin rulemaking anew. For the industry, the suspension provides yet another opportunity to take the teeth out of financial regulation. For consumers, long - awaited consumer protection that would have taken effect this summer is now indefinite."
Event participants at the Project GREEN event on Monday evening will express support for a 36% cap on annual interest rates so that Michigan can join 16 other states and D.C. that ban triple - digit debt trap lending.
Project GREEN, Grass Roots Economic Empowerment Network, is dedicated to turning everyday people into money heroes by helping families rewrite their financial legacies. Rev. Dallas Lenear is the Director.
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