January 23, 2012 | Kansas City Star
Community partnership springs up as an experiment for some of those who might fall into “a debt trap.”
January 23, 2012 | KCTV5 News
The Fair Community Credit Group, a Kansas City nonprofit group, is now offering an alternative. They are a group of churches, bankers, lawyers and nonprofit agencies planning to offer small loans.
January 23, 2012 | FOX 4 News
The non-profit group Communities Creating Opportunity is helping establish a fair community credit agency in Kansas City. It would compete with payday lenders but charge 36 percent interest instead of the triple-digit rates that payday lenders impose.
January 19, 2012 | Kansas City Star
A petition drive supported by religious congregations and other groups is seeking a statewide vote to clamp down on the predatory short-term lending businesses that are rampant in Missouri. And by the looks of the Anthony & Middlebrook letter, the industry is running scared.
January 18, 2012 | St. Louis Beacon
A law firm hired by the payday industry is blanketing the state with letters telling clergy, church board members and religious groups that their active support for a ballot initiative restricting payday loan interest rates could threaten their tax-exempt status.
January 15, 2012 | NBC Action News
About fifty people attended the Holy Cross Parish Church to support the “Communities Creating Opportunities” event on immigration. Organizers talked about what SB 590 would do to the undocumented parents who are in Missouri.
January 13, 2012 | Kansas City Star
The payday loan industry is looking a bit desperate in its attempt to derail an initiative petition in Missouri seeking to more strictly regulate short-term lending.
January 12, 2012 | KOMU
More than a hundred clergy and religious leaders from Missouri politicked and prayed at the capitol Thursday. Their gospel -- like modern day disciples -- alms for the poor. They want a bigger minimum wage and smaller interest rates.
January 12, 2012 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Missouri is one of the nation's most powerful magnets for payday loan companies. Its notoriously weak laws allow profiteers to prey on the working poor by charging effective annual interest rates of up 1,980 percent. The payday loan companies and their cousins in the consumer credit industry want to keep that gravy train running on time.
January 11, 2012 | Kansas City Star Letter to the Editor
Stand Up Missouri should quietly sit down until the people involved can support their position with facts, not innuendo and out-of-state dollars.
January 6, 2012 | Springfield News-Leader
Sprinfield pastors among clergy from around the state to meet in Jefferson City to learn about predatory lending practices in Missouri.
January 4, 2012 | Fox 4 News
Some Jackson County legislators want to limit the number of pawn shops and payday lenders. Consumer advocates claim the shops exploit the poor by charging outrageously high interest rates.
November 1, 2011 | KCTV-5
A large and organized interfaith action group is tackling predatory lending. "These are issues that cut across the state line. They cut across racial divides. They cut across all areas of our community. They are interests that we share," said John Miller, with Platte Woods United Methodist Church.
October 20, 2011 | Kansas City Star Editorial
An impressive show of grassroots organizing occurred Monday in Kansas City, as more than 1,000 people filled Union Station to call for fairer lending practices and healthier and safe communities.
October 19, 2011 | Kansas City Star
If the Occupy Wall Street folks ever decide to pursue an action plan, they might want to look at what Communities Creating Opportunities, more commonly known as CCO, is doing in Kansas City.
October 18, 2011 | NBC Action News
Congregations from across Kansas City came together to figure out ways to better the city. Members of Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO) joined city leaders at Union Station Tuesday night.
October 12, 2011 | KC Star - Midwest Voices
CCO Leader Beth Falkenstein shares her views on what's wrong in Kansas City and has an idea what you can do about it. Check out her piece on the Midwest Voices blog!
October 10, 2011 | Fox 4 News
Parents and community activists spent Columbus Day taking part in a fiery gun shop protest. CCO and other groups were present to show the community's opposition to the new business set to open at 63rd & Troost. There are three schools within blocks of that address and that has some parents fuming.
August 30, 2011 | Word and Way
CCO and Missourians for Responsible Lending are behind the effort to lower and cap effective annual percentage rates at 36 percent and to limit fees and finance charges.
August 9, 2011 | KCTV5 News
A grassroots group of community and faith leaders announced Tuesday that they will ask Missouri voters to approve a measure capping the rate of interest charged on payday loans.
August 4, 2011 | NBC Action News
Follow the article link to video of Fr. Ernie of St. Therese Little Flower Catholic Church and CCO organizer Jerry Jones responding to the violence in the Blue Hills neighborhood. "If this were happening in a powerful, wealthy area of town, a stop would have been put to this a long time ago."
After a man was shot dead on the doorstep of St. Therese Little Flower Catholic Church in Kansas City, MO (also the location of CCO offices), CCO and St. Therese organized a neighborhood vigil to mourn the 63rd victim of violence in Kansas City and the third person in five years to be killed within a block of the church. Blue Hills neighbors were joined by clergy and supporters from across the entire metro. A meeting will be held Saturday, August 13 at St. Therese to plan an effective response to this violence. All are welcome.
May 25, 2011 | The Nation
CCO's payday loan alternative gains national attention.
May 19, 2011 | KCTV 5
CCO community leaders work with public officials to secure better grocery options for residents.
April 27, 2011 | Northeast News
CCO Community Leaders push public officials to keep up blighted neighborhood
April 13, 2011 | The St. Louis Post Dispatch
CCO believes that, for lending to build assets in our communities, lending products in Missouri must abide by a fair interest rate.
March 22, 2011 | The Kansas City Star
March 11, 2011 | The Columbia Daily Trubune
September 14, 2010 | NBC Action News
September 14, 2010 | The Kansas City Star
June 30, 2010 | KCTV 5
Wendy Medina of Communities Creating Opportunity talks about some of the new immigration policies around the country.
June 22, 2010 | NBC Action News
June 21, 2010 | The Kansas City Star
March 10, 2010 | The Kansas City Star
February 8, 2010 | The Kansas City Star
Elliott Clark, a CCO community leader, displayed paid receipts to various payday loan companies from whom he borrowed. After three years he owed more than triple the original loan because of the high interest rates and other fees.
January 28, 2010 | The Washington Post
January 26, 2010 | KCUR
January 23, 2010 | The Kansas City Star
November 23, 2009 | NBC Action News
November 8, 2009 | NBC Action News
August 15, 2009 | The Catholic Key
August 14, 2009 |
March 10, 2009 | United Methodist News Service
February 24, 2009 | KMBC 9
February 24, 2009 | KMBC-TV 9
February 19, 2009 |
February 18, 2009 | Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2009 | NBC Action News
CCO’s Covenant for Families, developed by the work of congregations across the metro, includes three concrete campaigns in which we will come together to reduce inequality, improve public health, and secure financial security for families. These priorities call for improvements to the systems we live in and the creation of new solutions to the everyday problems we face.
At this critical time of financial crisis and political gridlock, will you stand up for working families and call for policies and measures that will make this country a Land of Opportunity for all? Add your name and join the clergy leaders below who have already signed.
Join people of faith and communities leaders throughout Kansas City to CAP THE RATE on payday and other high cost loans. Learn how predatory lending affects our families and join the 36 for 36% movement here.
Check out the data, charts, and maps from October 18th Communities Creating Opportunity NOW Action at Union Station.
You have the power to improve neighborhoods throughout Greater Kansas City through CCO. Click here to learn more.
The Faith and Families Summit is a day in which faith and lay leaders from across Missouri convene in our capitol to seek solutions to issues hurting our families and impacting our congregations.
See how PICO changes lives, strengthens families and revitalizes communities across the country.
