Tools for Advocates of Limiting Payday Lending

How your community can limit payday lending through land-use and other ordinances

The primary purpose of the toolkit is to create a set of tools for organizers and advocates of measures to limit payday lending. The toolkit will be online and in booklet form. But before getting into the specifics of the toolkit, we wish to articulate the fundamental problem with payday lending: it creates a debt trap in which the average borrower is taking out repeat loans for months just to pay off the first loan, each time paying the high interest rate but receiving no new cash (each loan goes to pay off the previous loan). The average payday customer takes out an average of eight to ten consecutive loans.

Payday loans are regulated, in most cases, at the state level, which means that the only way that counties or cities can affect payday lending through land-use ordinances. The toolkit provides a guide to advocating for a local ordinance to limit new or relocating payday establishments.

Tools to Help in Your Local Payday Lending Campaign:

• Gathering key data – demographic and payday lending
• Identification of key background research
• Review of California law and sample ordinances from around the state
• Framing the issues
• Coalition building for payday lending
• Creating a campaign action plan
• Resources: Key contacts, financial education materials

Download the PDF copy of the toolkit here.