In the workplaces of Advance America advance loan, posters telling stories of “the working mother,” “the mailman ” and “the hair stylist” expose the payday loan provider’s customers.
As traffic zoomed by on Military Highway one Friday that is recent morning clients trickled in. One paid down her $500 loan and ripped up the documents, declaring “I’m done!” Of a dozen others borrowed cash they stated they required, their dense workplace files showing they’d been here before.
Edwin Cruz, a pipefitter during the shipyard who lives nearby, paid down 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 armed forces workers, trapping them in high-interest loans and maintaining them in poverty.
But an analysis because of The Virginian-Pilot reveals the face area of payday lending is nearer to what is taking place at Advance America: Lenders are targeting middle-income communities, usually near shopping centers, and avoiding poor areas.
It really is why areas with reduced median incomes – such as for example Norfolk’s Berkley and Portsmouth’s Brighton/Prentis Park – do not have lenders that are payday while Portsmouth’s sturdily suburban subdivisions along Portsmouth Boulevard near Chesapeake Square Mall have group of those.