Podcast: TrueConnect means no more payday loans

Phil DeVol and Doug Farry

Our topic today is predatory lending and what to do about it. Those of us who have learned directly from people in poverty and those who are struggling to get by and Getting Ahead investigators know that predatory lending practices are a poverty trap.

Those of us who have worked to pass legislation to limit payday lenders, for example here in Ohio, we were able to limit them to 28%, this was back in ’08. And what we found was that the law was just like a snow fence to a blizzard. The predatory lenders found all kinds of ways to just blow through and over that fence.

Today we’re going to learn about an alternative to payday lending that I’m really excited about. And this is something that will give low-wage workers and others a fair shot at fair credit. So it’s a real pleasure for me to introduce Doug Farry. He’s the co-founder of Employee Loan Solutions in San Diego, the company that developed the TrueConnect program that you’ll be hearing about. Doug and the other co-founders are former executives with TurboTax in San Diego where they became aware of the negative impact of payday lending.

Listen to the podcast to learn more.

Philip DeVol2020-06-26T14:46:40-05:00October 6th, 2017|Community, Workplace|

About the Author: Philip DeVol

Phil DeVol is an international consultant who has been working with aha! Process since 1997. He used aha! Process concepts to make institutional changes at the addiction treatment center where he was the executive director for 19 years. During this time he also co-wrote Bridges Out of Poverty with Ruby Payne and Terie Dreussi-Smith. His book Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-by-World is being used to engage people in poverty in the work of building communities where everyone can live well. It worked so well that DeVol used it as a basis for a prison reentry model called Getting Ahead while Getting Out. He works with community leaders to help them move quickly from an attraction to application of Bridges concepts. Getting Ahead and Bridges are being used in hundreds of communities in the U.S., as well as a number of sites in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. His books have been translated into Spanish, Slovak, and Czech.