In the workplaces of Advance America cash loan, posters telling tales of “the working mother,” “the mailman ” and “the hair stylist” expose the payday lender’s customers.
As traffic zoomed by on Military Highway one current Friday early morning, clients trickled in. One paid down her $500 loan and ripped within the documents, declaring “I’m done!” About a dozen others borrowed cash they stated they required, their dense workplace files showing that they had been here prior to.
Edwin Cruz, a pipefitter during the shipyard whom lives nearby, reduced one loan and took away another to pay for some bills.
Elected officials and activists that are civic criticize payday financing state the companies feed down low-income residents and army workers, trapping them in high-interest loans and maintaining them in poverty.
But an analysis because of the Virginian-Pilot reveals the facial skin of payday lending is nearer to what is taking place at Advance America: Lenders are targeting middle-income communities, frequently near departmental stores, and avoiding poor areas.
It really is why areas with reduced median incomes – such as Norfolk’s Berkley and Portsmouth’s Brighton/Prentis Park – haven’t any lenders that are payday while Portsmouth’s sturdily suburban subdivisions along Portsmouth Boulevard near Chesapeake Square Mall have actually a group of these.