Activists, lawmakers say Massachusetts public bank is solution to lending disparities
Cheryl Straughter spends at least 12 hours each weekday in the kitchen at her Roxbury restaurant, Soleil, cooking southern classics like shrimp po-boy sandwiches, ribs and fried chicken.
When Straughter, who’s Black, set about opening the restaurant three years ago, she did what a lot of businesspeople do to get off the ground: apply for a loan. But banks refused her requests, saying she didn’t own enough assets that could serve as security for the loan. Ultimately, she cobbled together enough funding through grants from the city of Boston, money from relatives and more than $50,000 of her own savings. Straughter said she felt like a salmon swimming upstream.
"To start in a hole and then to be constantly climbing out — why is my dream of less value than somebody else’s?” Straughter said.
Black and Latino business owners like Straughter are far less likely than their white counterparts to receive loans and debt financing, according to the nonprofit Boston Foundation. To address structural racism and economic disparities, a group of state lawmakers and activists are trying to create a state-owned public bank, using $200 million in federal pandemic relief funds until it becomes self-sufficient.
Read more: https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2022/02/03/activists-lawmakers-say-massachusetts-public-bank-is-solution-to-lending-disparities