this ain't livin': Seeking Alternatives To Alternative Financing
As tempting as it is, simply outlawing alternative financing isn’t the solution, for a whole host of reasons. One is that when you outlaw something, you don’t take the market for that product away. Low-income people will still need financing and will still seek it, which means that other lenders will spring up to fill in the gaps. Whether they find loopholes to use in a quasi-regulated industry or offer loans in shady under the table deals with no opportunities for monitoring or enforcement, they will continue to operate, and the core problem won’t be resolved. If anything, outlawing would make the problem worse, because it would be harder to track the alternative financial industry, and harder still to measure its impact on communities.
