Occupy Forum: How the Other Half Isn’t Allowed to Bank.

Right now there are more predatory payday lenders in the US than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. And new ones keep popping up! In fact, payday lenders are often owned by the same banks that won’t provide accounts or loans to poor customers. Most progressives are so opposed to predatory lending that they want to shut payday lending down altogether … without providing an alternative for people who are cash-strapped and in need. Strike Debt Bay Area, an offshoot of Occupy Oakland, has found an answer in our hometown of Oakland.

Community Check Cashing (CCC) is a non-profit, providing the same services that for-profit payday lenders do — at a third to a half of what they charge.  CCC estimates that it has saved its customer base over $1,200,000 in the six years it has been open.

As activists, we’ve been exploring ways CCC can be strengthened and its model can be expanded — with the ultimate goal of taking out the for-profit payday lenders. We call this project Human Interest Lending. We’ll provide some history of the banks and the social contract, and talk about where we want to go. We’ll also update attendees on some of Strike Debt Bay Area’s other projects, including ending Student Debt and saving the Berkeley Post Office.

Debbie Notkin is on the board of the James Tiptree  J. Literary Award, and blogs at Body Impolitic www.laurietobyedison.com/body-impolitic-blog). She is an active member of Strike Debt Bay Area. She is contracts manager for a large nonfiction publishing company.

JP Massar is an activist with Strike Debt Bay Area, the Oakland Privacy Working Group, the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly and Occupy Oakland, a writer on the national progressive blog Daily Kos, the former policy chair for the Siegel for Oakland Mayoral campaign, and occasionally he can be seen marching against police violence or testifying against police militarization at the Berkeley and Oakland City Council.

Time will be allotted for discussion and announcements.