COMPASSION March 2016
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Faith doing justice in the Central and Southern Province...and beyond
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<p><img alt="" src="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/Compassion March 2016.jpg" /></p>
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Closing the Wealth Gap for Families of Color
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By La June Montgomery Tabron
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<p>By La June Montgomery Tabron Feb. 23, 2016</p>
<p> The Hidden Lives of America’s Poor and Middle Class The Hidden Lives of America’s Poor and Middle Class This series explores how current programs and policies for helping families escape poverty, build stability, move up the ladder, and invest in the future need to change.</p>
<p>Research from the recent US Financial Diaries project has directed a much-needed spotlight on the economic challenges that low- and middle-income families face across the United States. Shocks that began in investment markets post-recession have reverberated for nearly a decade, leading to income volatility and significant declines in wealth. These challenges remain a barrier to many families’ ability to weather unanticipated financial storms and achieve greater economic security.</p>
<p>At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we simply cannot disconnect this economic reality from other, equally important issues, including the persistent wealth gap affecting families of color and related, structural impediments to equality. </p>
<p>The Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances found that the 2007 housing and financial markets crash reduced the net worth of almost all American families. Yet it hit African American families hardest, triggering the widest wealth gap between white and black households since 1989. The wealth of African American households was more concentrated in home ownership (59 percent) compared to white households (44 percent), which included more stock market investments. During the recession, home values went down and foreclosure rates went up, resulting in black households losing more wealth than white households. In 2013, for example, the wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households and more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households. </p>
<p>Perpetuating these disparities are housing segregation and wage stagnation for lower-skilled workers, and an inequitable educational system that fails to help the current and next generation of workers of color acquire the essential skills they need for higher-skilled employment. The Pew Research Center, for example, shows median incomes for people of color fell 9 percent from 2010 to 2013, compared with a decrease of 1 percent for white households.</p>
<p><a href="http://ssir.org/articles/entry/closing_the_wealth_gap_for_families_of_color">MORE>></a></p>
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</div>
<p> The Hidden Lives of America’s Poor and Middle Class The Hidden Lives of America’s Poor and Middle Class This series explores how current programs and policies for helping families escape poverty, build stability, move up the ladder, and invest in the future need to change.</p>
<p>Research from the recent US Financial Diaries project has directed a much-needed spotlight on the economic challenges that low- and middle-income families face across the United States. Shocks that began in investment markets post-recession have reverberated for nearly a decade, leading to income volatility and significant declines in wealth. These challenges remain a barrier to many families’ ability to weather unanticipated financial storms and achieve greater economic security.</p>
<p>At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we simply cannot disconnect this economic reality from other, equally important issues, including the persistent wealth gap affecting families of color and related, structural impediments to equality. </p>
<p>The Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances found that the 2007 housing and financial markets crash reduced the net worth of almost all American families. Yet it hit African American families hardest, triggering the widest wealth gap between white and black households since 1989. The wealth of African American households was more concentrated in home ownership (59 percent) compared to white households (44 percent), which included more stock market investments. During the recession, home values went down and foreclosure rates went up, resulting in black households losing more wealth than white households. In 2013, for example, the wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households and more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households. </p>
<p>Perpetuating these disparities are housing segregation and wage stagnation for lower-skilled workers, and an inequitable educational system that fails to help the current and next generation of workers of color acquire the essential skills they need for higher-skilled employment. The Pew Research Center, for example, shows median incomes for people of color fell 9 percent from 2010 to 2013, compared with a decrease of 1 percent for white households.</p>
<p><a href="http://ssir.org/articles/entry/closing_the_wealth_gap_for_families_of_color">MORE>></a></p>
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Date
The costs of inequality
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Money = quality health care = longer life
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<p>By Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer</p>
<p>Fourth in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to identify and understand inequality, in seeking solutions to one of America’s most vexing problems.</p>
<p>If you want to get an idea of the gap between the world’s sickest and healthiest people, don’t fly to a faraway land. Just look around the United States.</p>
<p>Health inequality is part of American life, so deeply entangled with other social problems — disparities in income, education, housing, race, gender, and even geography — that analysts have trouble saying which factors are cause and which are effect. The confusing result, they say, is a massive chicken-and-egg puzzle, its solution reaching beyond just health care. Because of that, everyday realities often determine whether people live in health or infirmity, to a ripe old age or early death.</p>
<p>“There are huge inequalities in this country that often get overlooked … If you want to observe the problems of poverty and inequality, you don’t need to travel all the way to Malawi. You can go to a rural house in America,” said Ichiro Kawachi, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Social Epidemiology and chair of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. “If you’re born a black man in, let’s say, New Orleans Parish, your average life expectancy is worse than the male average of countries that are much poorer than America.”</p>
<p><a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/money-quality-health-care-longer-life/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hu-twitter-general">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Fourth in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to identify and understand inequality, in seeking solutions to one of America’s most vexing problems.</p>
<p>If you want to get an idea of the gap between the world’s sickest and healthiest people, don’t fly to a faraway land. Just look around the United States.</p>
<p>Health inequality is part of American life, so deeply entangled with other social problems — disparities in income, education, housing, race, gender, and even geography — that analysts have trouble saying which factors are cause and which are effect. The confusing result, they say, is a massive chicken-and-egg puzzle, its solution reaching beyond just health care. Because of that, everyday realities often determine whether people live in health or infirmity, to a ripe old age or early death.</p>
<p>“There are huge inequalities in this country that often get overlooked … If you want to observe the problems of poverty and inequality, you don’t need to travel all the way to Malawi. You can go to a rural house in America,” said Ichiro Kawachi, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Social Epidemiology and chair of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. “If you’re born a black man in, let’s say, New Orleans Parish, your average life expectancy is worse than the male average of countries that are much poorer than America.”</p>
<p><a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/money-quality-health-care-longer-life/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hu-twitter-general">MORE>></a></p>
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After community action, NOPD ends collusion with ICE on immigration policing
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New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice Press Release
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<p>Posted by <a href="http://nowcrj.org/">NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE</a> on February 23, 2016 </p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS, February 23, 2016—In a victory for New Orleans’ immigrant communities, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) announced today it is adopting a bias-free immigration policing policy that will end NOPD collusion with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).</p>
<p><a href="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/NOPD-anti-bias-policing-policy-Feb-2016.pdf">(Download the new policy – PDF, 4 pages.)</a></p>
<p>Organizers and immigrant members of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice’s (NOWCRJ’s) Congress of Day Laborers had long pressed the NOPD to adopt a bias-free policing policy, documenting rampant civil and human rights violations against immigrant communities that resulted from NOPD-ICE collusion.</p>
<p>“Our communities fought for this policy, and we’re celebrating it today,” said Santos Alvarado, a member of the Congress of Day Laborers. “It’s going to improve relations between NOPD and immigrant communities, and it’s going to make all our communities safer by making police more accountable. This is a model policy we will be fighting for other parishes to adopt across Louisiana.”</p>
<p>NOWCRJ Immigration Organizer Jolene Elberth said, “NOPD’s bias-free policing policy is one of best in the country. It’s a big first step toward police accountability at a time when Black Lives Matters and others are building a national movement for more accountable law enforcement. ICE has been recognized as the largest unaccountable law enforcement agency in the U.S. Any police force that wants to move toward accountability—and make its communities more safe—should start by ending collusion with ICE.”</p>
<p>The new policy, which goes into effect on February 28, 2016, will improve community relations by allowing all New Orleanians, regardless of immigration status, interact with NOPD without fear that their immigration status will be used as a weapon against them.</p>
<p>“New Orleans is now the first city in the country where both the sheriff and the local police force recognize that voluntary submission to ICE is bad policy for the community, and have put policies in place to keep ICE out of city law enforcement,” said NOWCRJ Immigration Organizer Fernando Lopez.</p>
<p>Since Hurricane Katrina, NOWCRJ has monitored and documented NOPD’s collusion with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in unconstitutional, race-based community raids that created a citywide human and civil rights crisis. The collusion continued even after NOWCRJ’s 2013 exposé of systematic civil and constitutional violations in ICE’s Criminal Alien Removal Initiative (CARI), which led to a Congressional inquiry and front-page coverage in the New York Times. NOWCRJ’s advocacy of bias-free policing won the support of New Orleans City Council in March 2015, paving the way for the new NOPD policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>CONTACT: NOWCRJ Immigration Organizer Fernando Lopez, flopez@nowcrj.org, (504) 258-1000.</p>
<p>NEW ORLEANS, February 23, 2016—In a victory for New Orleans’ immigrant communities, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) announced today it is adopting a bias-free immigration policing policy that will end NOPD collusion with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).</p>
<p><a href="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/NOPD-anti-bias-policing-policy-Feb-2016.pdf">(Download the new policy – PDF, 4 pages.)</a></p>
<p>Organizers and immigrant members of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice’s (NOWCRJ’s) Congress of Day Laborers had long pressed the NOPD to adopt a bias-free policing policy, documenting rampant civil and human rights violations against immigrant communities that resulted from NOPD-ICE collusion.</p>
<p>“Our communities fought for this policy, and we’re celebrating it today,” said Santos Alvarado, a member of the Congress of Day Laborers. “It’s going to improve relations between NOPD and immigrant communities, and it’s going to make all our communities safer by making police more accountable. This is a model policy we will be fighting for other parishes to adopt across Louisiana.”</p>
<p>NOWCRJ Immigration Organizer Jolene Elberth said, “NOPD’s bias-free policing policy is one of best in the country. It’s a big first step toward police accountability at a time when Black Lives Matters and others are building a national movement for more accountable law enforcement. ICE has been recognized as the largest unaccountable law enforcement agency in the U.S. Any police force that wants to move toward accountability—and make its communities more safe—should start by ending collusion with ICE.”</p>
<p>The new policy, which goes into effect on February 28, 2016, will improve community relations by allowing all New Orleanians, regardless of immigration status, interact with NOPD without fear that their immigration status will be used as a weapon against them.</p>
<p>“New Orleans is now the first city in the country where both the sheriff and the local police force recognize that voluntary submission to ICE is bad policy for the community, and have put policies in place to keep ICE out of city law enforcement,” said NOWCRJ Immigration Organizer Fernando Lopez.</p>
<p>Since Hurricane Katrina, NOWCRJ has monitored and documented NOPD’s collusion with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in unconstitutional, race-based community raids that created a citywide human and civil rights crisis. The collusion continued even after NOWCRJ’s 2013 exposé of systematic civil and constitutional violations in ICE’s Criminal Alien Removal Initiative (CARI), which led to a Congressional inquiry and front-page coverage in the New York Times. NOWCRJ’s advocacy of bias-free policing won the support of New Orleans City Council in March 2015, paving the way for the new NOPD policy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>CONTACT: NOWCRJ Immigration Organizer Fernando Lopez, flopez@nowcrj.org, (504) 258-1000.</p>
Date
White workers have nearly five times as much wealth in retirement accounts as black workers
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By Monique Morrissey | February 18, 2016
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<p>By Monique Morrissey | February 18, 2016</p>
<p>Since the rise of 401(k)s in the early 1980s, the retirement gap between black and white workers has widened. Before 401(k)s took off, black and white workers had similar rates of participation in retirement plans. In 1983, 53 percent of white workers and 52 percent of black workers age 32-61 (the age range during which most workers would be expected to save for retirement before becoming eligible for reduced Social Security benefits) participated in an employer-based plan.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/white-workers-have-nearly-five-times-as-much-wealth-in-retirement-accounts-as-black-workers/?utm_source=Economic+Policy+Institute&utm_campaign=672057972b-EPI_News_02_19_162_19_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e7c5826c50-672057972b-55871785">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Since the rise of 401(k)s in the early 1980s, the retirement gap between black and white workers has widened. Before 401(k)s took off, black and white workers had similar rates of participation in retirement plans. In 1983, 53 percent of white workers and 52 percent of black workers age 32-61 (the age range during which most workers would be expected to save for retirement before becoming eligible for reduced Social Security benefits) participated in an employer-based plan.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/white-workers-have-nearly-five-times-as-much-wealth-in-retirement-accounts-as-black-workers/?utm_source=Economic+Policy+Institute&utm_campaign=672057972b-EPI_News_02_19_162_19_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e7c5826c50-672057972b-55871785">MORE>></a></p>
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Progress Check: Youth Confinement in America Today
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February 23, 2016
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<p><a href="http://www.aecf.org/blog/progress-check-youth-confinement-in-america-today/"><img alt="" src="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/Annie.jpg" /></a></p>
Date
Fr. Fred Kammer, SJ, discusses the "Joy of the Gospel."
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As part of Loyola University New Orleans Lenten Series, Fr. Fred Kammer, SJ discusses the "Joy of the Gospel." Filmed and produced by Loyola University Film and Music Industry Studies.
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfQDD0kkQBw&feature=youtu.be&a"><img alt="" src="https://jsri.loyno.edu/sites/loyno.edu.jsri/files/Untitled.jpg" style="width: 700px; height: 500px;" /></a></p>
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Faith in Action: Mississippi Catholics and Child Well Being
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by Fred Kammer, SJ
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<h4>
Mississippi Catholics and Child Well Being </h4>
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by Fred Kammer, SJ </div>
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<p>On Thursday, February 11, 85 concerned Mississippians gathered in the parish center at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Jackson for the annual Catholic Day at the Capitol. Three issues were the focus of the advocacy gathering: adequate funding for the child welfare system in Mississippi; support for the maintenance of community-based mental health services; and raising adequate revenues to meet the State’s duties towards the common good. </p>
<p>Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz of Jackson welcomed the participants, reminding them of the remarks of Pope Francis to the U.S. Congress and his call to Christian responsibility for the common good. The Bishop also spoke from his own experience as godfather to a young woman adopted from the Pennsylvania foster care system and her struggles and those of her family to address childhood traumas.</p>
<p>Matthew Burkhart of Catholic Relief Services reminded participants of the call to Catholics to the “two feet” of social justice: individual acts of service to those in need and advocacy for greater justice for all those who are poor and vulnerable. </p>
<p>The panel that followed vividly described the plight of children and those needing mental health services: literal “atrocities” in a child welfare system under court order to institute major reforms; caseworkers shredding case files of children whom they were unable to serve; greater numbers of families “failing” within Mississippi’s economy; and multiple “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, hunger, and abandonment. Last year, there were 25,000 cases of abuse reported, but only 6,200 were “evidenced” (meaning there was a documented investigation) due to shortages of state workers. Thirty-five percent of Mississippi children live in poverty.</p>
<p>In recent years, Mississippi’s legislature has rebuffed efforts to increase significantly the funding for the child welfare system, rejecting the governor’s requests. Instead, lawmakers have approved various tax breaks and loopholes for corporations that have significantly decreased the corporate contributions to the tax base. The state relies heavily on regressive sales and property taxes where lower income families pay higher shares of their family income in taxes, as reflected in the table below. [1]</p>
<p><a href="https://t.e2ma.net/webview/nd8ak/2f79dfac5f04af8e4e5236cc6b23980e">MORE>></a></p>
Mississippi Catholics and Child Well Being </h4>
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by Fred Kammer, SJ </div>
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</div>
<p>On Thursday, February 11, 85 concerned Mississippians gathered in the parish center at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Jackson for the annual Catholic Day at the Capitol. Three issues were the focus of the advocacy gathering: adequate funding for the child welfare system in Mississippi; support for the maintenance of community-based mental health services; and raising adequate revenues to meet the State’s duties towards the common good. </p>
<p>Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz of Jackson welcomed the participants, reminding them of the remarks of Pope Francis to the U.S. Congress and his call to Christian responsibility for the common good. The Bishop also spoke from his own experience as godfather to a young woman adopted from the Pennsylvania foster care system and her struggles and those of her family to address childhood traumas.</p>
<p>Matthew Burkhart of Catholic Relief Services reminded participants of the call to Catholics to the “two feet” of social justice: individual acts of service to those in need and advocacy for greater justice for all those who are poor and vulnerable. </p>
<p>The panel that followed vividly described the plight of children and those needing mental health services: literal “atrocities” in a child welfare system under court order to institute major reforms; caseworkers shredding case files of children whom they were unable to serve; greater numbers of families “failing” within Mississippi’s economy; and multiple “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, hunger, and abandonment. Last year, there were 25,000 cases of abuse reported, but only 6,200 were “evidenced” (meaning there was a documented investigation) due to shortages of state workers. Thirty-five percent of Mississippi children live in poverty.</p>
<p>In recent years, Mississippi’s legislature has rebuffed efforts to increase significantly the funding for the child welfare system, rejecting the governor’s requests. Instead, lawmakers have approved various tax breaks and loopholes for corporations that have significantly decreased the corporate contributions to the tax base. The state relies heavily on regressive sales and property taxes where lower income families pay higher shares of their family income in taxes, as reflected in the table below. [1]</p>
<p><a href="https://t.e2ma.net/webview/nd8ak/2f79dfac5f04af8e4e5236cc6b23980e">MORE>></a></p>
Date
Is the Payday Soon Over for Payday Lenders?
News Intro Text
[Jackson Free Press, February 17, 2016]
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<p>By R.L. Nave Wednesday, February 17, 2016 </p>
<p>Like a sadder version of Las Vegas, the signs towering above Jackson's payday-loan shops and check-cashing joints seem designed to entice motorists in the city's major thoroughfares. In some cases, the businesses' color schemes mimic those of cheap fast-food restaurants. And, ironically, several of the businesses happen to operate out of repurposed fast-food restaurants.</p>
<p>The signs make statements that often are alliterative (e.g. "Quick Cash"), rhyme (e.g. "Fast Cash"), or straight and to the point (e.g. "Check Cashing" and "Payday Loans"). Because of the principles of supply and demand, one might argue that the concentration of these kinds of businesses—which say they offer customers the convenience of a microloan in exchange for not looking at their credit history for a premium—is a sign of an economy working the way it should.</p>
<p>De'Keither Stamps, who represents Ward 4 and serves as chairman of the Budget Committee, argues the converse. In his view, these businesses depress the economic potential in the city. Wearing a purple golf shirt buttoned to the neck in his City Hall office looking out onto President Street, Stamps said the "fringe economy" is holding Jackson back.</p>
<p>"We've got to figure out what we're going to do to change the economics of the city so that people can afford other types of retail and businesses," Stamps said.</p>
<p>The councilman's view is also rooted in supply-and-demand theory: In essence, the more money people spend on payday-loan and check-cashing fees, the less they have to help bolster the City's treasury by purchasing goods and services.</p>
<p>That's why Stamps is pushing for a one-year moratorium on future growth of such businesses. His proposed ordinance would deny business licenses to new payday-loan and check-cashing locations as well as pawn shops and liquor stores. Stamps said the ordinance would also include a financial-literacy component, which he believes could help end the intergenerational cycle of relying on high-interest financial services instead of traditional banks.</p>
<p>In Jackson, more than 30 percent of people live below the poverty line compared to 22 percent of people across Mississippi, itself the poorest state in the nation. But under the Mississippi Check Cashers Act, people can borrow up to $410 from payday lenders. State law allows the loan company to charge $20 or less per $100 on loans of up $250. For loans between $251 and $500, lender can charge up to $21.95 per $100.</p>
<p>"For example, a borrower writes a $500 check, pays the $90 fee, and receives $410 in cash. It is illegal to write a check for more than $500," according to a factsheet from the state banking department.</p>
<p>Charles Lee, director of consumer protection at the Mississippi Center for Justice, explains: "People use what's closest to them. If that's the closest financial—quote—institution to where they live, that's what they'll use."</p>
<p><strong>A Growing Trend</strong></p>
<p>If Stamps' proposal sounds radical, it isn't. As of 2010, the Mississippi cities of Byram, Canton, Clinton, Flowood, Jackson, Laurel, Pearl, Rankin County, Ridgeland, Starkville, and West Point had either imposed moratoria or restricted the businesses with zoning regulations.</p>
<p>Nationwide, more than 120 cities have imposed similar restrictions, information from the Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Federation of America shows.</p>
<p>If Jackson follows through, it would be the latest blow to a high-cost lending industry already reeling from regulatory crackdowns from the federal government as well as the state of Mississippi, which holds the distinction as home of the most payday-loan companies per capita in America.</p>
<p>In 2014, the Mississippi Department of Banking and Consumer Finance ordered All American Checking, a Madison-based payday lender, to end a practice that the department said was tantamount to illegal rollovers of payday loans. Mississippi law requires customers to pay loans in full before taking out a new loan.</p>
<p>State regulators said All American unlawfully allowed customers to pay the fees, but delay paying the principal. All America sued the state in federal court in Jackson on Jan. 29, saying the state's regulatory actions could unlawfully shutter the business.</p>
<p>Dale Danks Jr., an attorney for the company, did not return a phone message. In response to a follow-up email, Danks referred a reporter to the complaint, saying, "At this time, I do not feel it is proper to discuss matters concerning All American Check Cashing's motion against the Mississippi Banking Commission."</p>
<p>All American's complaint against Charlotte Corley, the state banking commissioner and other individuals, states that in June 2014, banking department agents showed up at six All American locations, including its corporate headquarters in Madison.</p>
<p>The company said the agents used "heavy-handed and unnecessary tactics" and forced their way into back rooms and bathrooms to present employees with a questionnaire about the company's lending practices.</p>
<p>"These heavy-handed tactics were intended to cause and, indeed, did cause fear in All American's employees," the complaint states.</p>
<p>Officials with the state banking department also did not respond to a phone message. A hearing is set in the matter for Feb. 12.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2016/feb/17/payday-soon-over-payday-lenders/">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Like a sadder version of Las Vegas, the signs towering above Jackson's payday-loan shops and check-cashing joints seem designed to entice motorists in the city's major thoroughfares. In some cases, the businesses' color schemes mimic those of cheap fast-food restaurants. And, ironically, several of the businesses happen to operate out of repurposed fast-food restaurants.</p>
<p>The signs make statements that often are alliterative (e.g. "Quick Cash"), rhyme (e.g. "Fast Cash"), or straight and to the point (e.g. "Check Cashing" and "Payday Loans"). Because of the principles of supply and demand, one might argue that the concentration of these kinds of businesses—which say they offer customers the convenience of a microloan in exchange for not looking at their credit history for a premium—is a sign of an economy working the way it should.</p>
<p>De'Keither Stamps, who represents Ward 4 and serves as chairman of the Budget Committee, argues the converse. In his view, these businesses depress the economic potential in the city. Wearing a purple golf shirt buttoned to the neck in his City Hall office looking out onto President Street, Stamps said the "fringe economy" is holding Jackson back.</p>
<p>"We've got to figure out what we're going to do to change the economics of the city so that people can afford other types of retail and businesses," Stamps said.</p>
<p>The councilman's view is also rooted in supply-and-demand theory: In essence, the more money people spend on payday-loan and check-cashing fees, the less they have to help bolster the City's treasury by purchasing goods and services.</p>
<p>That's why Stamps is pushing for a one-year moratorium on future growth of such businesses. His proposed ordinance would deny business licenses to new payday-loan and check-cashing locations as well as pawn shops and liquor stores. Stamps said the ordinance would also include a financial-literacy component, which he believes could help end the intergenerational cycle of relying on high-interest financial services instead of traditional banks.</p>
<p>In Jackson, more than 30 percent of people live below the poverty line compared to 22 percent of people across Mississippi, itself the poorest state in the nation. But under the Mississippi Check Cashers Act, people can borrow up to $410 from payday lenders. State law allows the loan company to charge $20 or less per $100 on loans of up $250. For loans between $251 and $500, lender can charge up to $21.95 per $100.</p>
<p>"For example, a borrower writes a $500 check, pays the $90 fee, and receives $410 in cash. It is illegal to write a check for more than $500," according to a factsheet from the state banking department.</p>
<p>Charles Lee, director of consumer protection at the Mississippi Center for Justice, explains: "People use what's closest to them. If that's the closest financial—quote—institution to where they live, that's what they'll use."</p>
<p><strong>A Growing Trend</strong></p>
<p>If Stamps' proposal sounds radical, it isn't. As of 2010, the Mississippi cities of Byram, Canton, Clinton, Flowood, Jackson, Laurel, Pearl, Rankin County, Ridgeland, Starkville, and West Point had either imposed moratoria or restricted the businesses with zoning regulations.</p>
<p>Nationwide, more than 120 cities have imposed similar restrictions, information from the Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Federation of America shows.</p>
<p>If Jackson follows through, it would be the latest blow to a high-cost lending industry already reeling from regulatory crackdowns from the federal government as well as the state of Mississippi, which holds the distinction as home of the most payday-loan companies per capita in America.</p>
<p>In 2014, the Mississippi Department of Banking and Consumer Finance ordered All American Checking, a Madison-based payday lender, to end a practice that the department said was tantamount to illegal rollovers of payday loans. Mississippi law requires customers to pay loans in full before taking out a new loan.</p>
<p>State regulators said All American unlawfully allowed customers to pay the fees, but delay paying the principal. All America sued the state in federal court in Jackson on Jan. 29, saying the state's regulatory actions could unlawfully shutter the business.</p>
<p>Dale Danks Jr., an attorney for the company, did not return a phone message. In response to a follow-up email, Danks referred a reporter to the complaint, saying, "At this time, I do not feel it is proper to discuss matters concerning All American Check Cashing's motion against the Mississippi Banking Commission."</p>
<p>All American's complaint against Charlotte Corley, the state banking commissioner and other individuals, states that in June 2014, banking department agents showed up at six All American locations, including its corporate headquarters in Madison.</p>
<p>The company said the agents used "heavy-handed and unnecessary tactics" and forced their way into back rooms and bathrooms to present employees with a questionnaire about the company's lending practices.</p>
<p>"These heavy-handed tactics were intended to cause and, indeed, did cause fear in All American's employees," the complaint states.</p>
<p>Officials with the state banking department also did not respond to a phone message. A hearing is set in the matter for Feb. 12.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2016/feb/17/payday-soon-over-payday-lenders/">MORE>></a></p>
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The Power of Encounter
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Pope Francis Visits the U.S.-Mexico Border
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<p>By Christopher Kerr 02-12-2016</p>
<p>Do you remember the video clips of 5-year-old Sophie Cruz dashing across Constitution Avenue to Pope Francis’s popemobile during his visit to Washington, D.C., last September? The story of that encounter went viral: a young child with undocumented parents from Mexico who was granted permission to approach the pope, give him a letter, and receive a hug.</p>
<p>At the time, many seemed surprised by encounters like these during the pope’s U.S. trip — particularly that he would choose to make personal contact with the realities faced by marginalized populations. But this encounter-centered approach has been Francis’ way of operating since the outset of his pontificate.</p>
<p>In July 2013, he decided to visit the southern Italian island of Lampedusa to remember the thousands of African migrants who died in their attempt to reach the island. There he personally met with newly arrived migrants before celebrating mass in a sports field that had been converted into a migrant reception center. Citing the parable of the Good Samaritan during his homily, he asked, “Has any one of us grieved for the death of these [migrant] brothers and sisters? Has any one of us wept for these persons who were on the boat?”</p>
<p><a href="https://sojo.net/articles/power-encounter">MORE>></a></p>
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<p>Do you remember the video clips of 5-year-old Sophie Cruz dashing across Constitution Avenue to Pope Francis’s popemobile during his visit to Washington, D.C., last September? The story of that encounter went viral: a young child with undocumented parents from Mexico who was granted permission to approach the pope, give him a letter, and receive a hug.</p>
<p>At the time, many seemed surprised by encounters like these during the pope’s U.S. trip — particularly that he would choose to make personal contact with the realities faced by marginalized populations. But this encounter-centered approach has been Francis’ way of operating since the outset of his pontificate.</p>
<p>In July 2013, he decided to visit the southern Italian island of Lampedusa to remember the thousands of African migrants who died in their attempt to reach the island. There he personally met with newly arrived migrants before celebrating mass in a sports field that had been converted into a migrant reception center. Citing the parable of the Good Samaritan during his homily, he asked, “Has any one of us grieved for the death of these [migrant] brothers and sisters? Has any one of us wept for these persons who were on the boat?”</p>
<p><a href="https://sojo.net/articles/power-encounter">MORE>></a></p>
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