New Orleans Payday lending was the first national campaign for ACORN Canada and, despite winning some relief in several provinces, the effort to clamp down on the industry nationally continues to be a priority and continues to elude. Currently, ACORN is on a national advisory committees studying another effort to update the regulations. In …
Month: January 2015
On-Demand Economy, “Utter Nonsense,” and Unequal Negotiation
New Orleans When we affiliated with SEIU initially in 1984, the one condition imposed on our local union in New Orleans was that we not organize the city police. They had had a bad experience with a group they had tried to affiliate then had gone rouge and struck to hold Mardi Gras hostage. No …
Predatory Rent-to-Own Scams Hark Back to Discriminatory Schemes
New Orleans In the early days of ACORN in Little Rock in lower income, largely African-American neighborhoods before the 1978 Community Reinvestment Act was passed forbidding racial discrimination in bank lending and outlawing redlining, the stories of families trying to rent-to-own their homes were legion. I read many of these documents carefully and knew families …