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financial justice
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Crain’s New York Business: Windfall for Local Nonprofit that Aids New Yorkers Sued by Debt Collectors
Crain’s New York Business — Debt collectors in New York hit upon a big idea last decade: They would buy defaulted credit-card or health-care bills, sue debtors without notifying them and then falsely state they had been properly served. Defendants, often poor minorities, didn’t show up in court. Default judgments were routinely entered, leaving collectors…
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Testimony on Behalf of the Public Bank NYC Coalition Before the 2019 NYC Charter Revision Commission
I’m pleased to present testimony on behalf of Public Bank NYC, a broad-based coalition New Economy project co-founded and coordinates. Public Bank NYC is made up of community, civil rights, environmental, and economic justice groups fighting for the creation of a municipal public bank – chartered to serve the public interest, accountable to New Yorkers,…
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Barcelona’s Commissioner for Cooperative Economics visits New Economy Project
On August 3, 2018, nearly two dozen people from NYC community organizing and cooperative development organizations packed into our conference room for an engaging lunch discussion with Álvaro Porro, Social Economy Commissioner for the City of Barcelona. Barcelona’s story presents a powerful model for New York City, and we were eager for this extended opportunity…
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Who Approved That?
One day, Kenneth Lovell went to a local electronics store to buy a transistor radio. He left the store more than $17,000 in debt, with three bank credit cards issued in his name. How did this happen? Listen to Kenneth and his brother Patrick Lovell tell their story.
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Let’s Be Real Special Feature: Kenneth Lovell
How did Brooklyn resident Kenneth Lovell, a retired janitor living on a fixed-income and with no credit history, find himself thousands of dollars in debt? It’s a refrain we’ve heard before on our NYC Financial Justice Hotline: Wall Street banks working in cahoots with retail stores, doctors’ offices, and others to exploit low-income New Yorkers.…
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No More, Encore
This spring, New Economy Project attended Encore Capital’s annual shareholder meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Three members of our legal team, Eve Weissman, Susan Shin, and Nick Loh, went to the shareholder meeting to call out ways that Encore, among the country’s largest debt buying companies, harms New Yorkers.
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Norwood News: Campaign Champions Bronx Postal Banking System
Norwood News — Several proposals are under way to provide banking services, such as ATMs, paycheck cashing, bill payment, electronic money transfers and small-dollar loans, at Bronx post offices in hopes of making residents less reliant on alternative financial services.
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Crain’s New York Business: Debt-Collection Lawsuits Are Roaring Back, Along With An Old Ruse That Victimizes Borrowers
Crain’s New York Business — Esther Roman, a 60-year-old grandmother in Brooklyn, was alarmed when she noticed in January that her $300 weekly paycheck was $27.99 short. She called her employer, a home health care agency, which said her wages were being garnished after someone sued her, claiming she’d failed to pay an old credit-card…
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Albany Drops the Ball on Community Development
A lot has been written about the shortcomings of New York’s recently-passed state budget. The upshot: New York’s electeds missed the clear opportunity to take decisive action against Trumpism and to protect communities under attack. A glaring example of this failure of leadership is the decision, yet again, not to fund a widely-supported program that…
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Let’s Be Real Episode 6: We’re Fed Up!
This episode, we take a look at a campaign that focuses on the Federal Reserve System and its impact on working people and people of color. We take you to a rally in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where we spoke with two protesters about how the Fed impacts their communities.…