Payday Lending Increasing in Illinois
A local news agency in Illinois reports that payday lending is not just surviving but growing at a rapid pace.
While you might not be familiar with the term payday loan, I’m sure you have probably seen the ads and now some Peoria officials are cracking down on the industry. City leaders say the number of payday loan stores in Peoria has doubled in the past year, and they want to put a stop to it.
The question for me is why does the government want to stop payday loans while so many customers want and routinely need them? In fact; Peoria Resident Kerensa Nunn says “There are quite a few but if you are in a bind they help out.” She is referring to the number of payday loan stores in the city. Even though she uses the cash advance, she supports Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken’s plans for a moratorium on them. “We’re exploring ways we can regulate them either through licensing or perhaps through zoning to limit where they’re located, how they’re located.” Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken says last year in Peoria’s phone book there were only 14 payday loan businesses like this. This year that number has jumped to 27. “Constituents who contacted me say they were concerned about the proliferation of these stores in the city and what that says about their neighborhood when they locate there,” says Barbara Van Auken. “I do utilize them I think that they are good but for so many of them to be open and available I don’t think that’s what it should be,” says Karensa Nunn. The city’s senior staff attorney Clifton Mitchell says other cities have enacted similar payday loan ordinances in the past, so this nothing out of the ordinary. “Cities have taken different approaches to this. Some have done it from the zoning point of view, some have done it from the licensing point of view, so who knows we could have a combination of those two.” I like freedom and freedom to choose, I say let the American public decide what they want and what they need. The last thing we need is the government telling us what to-do..last time I checked the government wasn’t doing anything to help pay my electric bill, pay my rent, or the extra cost I seem to get with for my child’s public schooling.
