Jose Quinonez's blog

I am very excited to share an article by Anne Stuhldreher that ran on the SF Chronicle. Anne captured the spirit and essence of MAF’s innovative credit building peer lending circles, otherwise known as Cestas Populares.

Please read the article below!

San Francisco Chronicle
Traditional lending goes mainstream
By Anne Stuhldreher
April 8, 2009

A whopping 44 percent of Mission District residents don't have low credit scores. They have NO credit scores. Without them, the only loans they can get are the loans no one wants - those with pricey interest rates and harsh terms. And if doors to affordable credit seemed closed to these consumers before the financial meltdown, they're slammed shut now.

Unless, that is, you're friends with someone like Maria del Carmen Torres. In between serving up pupusas and plantain chips at local farmers' markets, she runs an informal lending circle with 12 friends. Every Saturday and Sunday, they stop by her Folsom Street apartment to drop off $200 in cash. And on Mondays the whole pot - $2,600 - goes to one person until everyone has their turn.

This past week, we participated in a taping of Encuentro en la Bahia, a community show that airs Saturday mornings on Univision. We were delighted to participate in this show because it presented us a great opportunity to deliver our message that we're now "open for business."

Make sure to tune in on Saturday, June 14 to see Anamaria Loya, Daniela Salas, Rhea Serna and myself talking about how MAF was created and why we are doing the work of helping low-income immigrant families build their financial security.

Earlier this year, a study by Social Compact, a research organization based in Washington DC, revealed some very startling facts about the market realities of twelve San Francisco neighborhoods, which included the Mission District. The report is a must read in its entirely.

For this blog post, I want to highlight a couple of findings that clearly explain the enormous challenges we face as we work to help low-income families build their assets and capacity to invest in their own community.

The number of pawnshops, check-cashers and payday lenders (22) are almost twice the number of banks (12) in the neighborhood - a fact that is ever apparent with a short stroll down Mission Street. These high-cost fringe establishments serve only to strip low-income families from their hard-earned gains.