‘Peer-to-peer’ lending cuts out the Wall Street middlemen

The fund’s executive director, José Quiñonez, knows well the difficulties facing new immigrant families: He came to the United States from Mexico as an undocumented child, a prototypical candidate for the DREAM Act. Quiñonez earned his green card in the amnesty program of 1987 and, with papers in hand, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Davis, then a master’s degree from Princeton.

With Quiñonez at the helm, the Mission Asset Fund has been able to tailor its financial products to new immigrants, including setting up lending circles specifically to cover the costs of applying for U.S. citizenship.

“Individuals that don’t have access to the financial mainstream — people who don’t have access to banks or credit unions — they basically have to create that access for themselves,” explains Quiñonez. “Social loans are traditional loans that people make with each other, they’re very traditional in immigrant communities, but those loans never get recorded or reported to the credit bureaus.” Until now.

In addition to the seed money from the Levi-Strauss Foundation, the fund has found support from a range of both institutions and individuals, including numerous mainstream financial institutions that don’t always serve the needs of low-income communities. “We get referrals from local banks,” says Robinson. “They see us as part of a continuum.”

The Citi Foundation, an offshoot of Citibank, embraced the Mission Asset Fund after officials realized their own financial literacy classes were less effective than they’d hoped. The fund recently received a $200,000 Neighborhood Builders Award from Bank of America.

Because of the loans they received from the Mission Asset Fund, both Christina Ruiz and Helen Ochoa were able to turn their lives around. Ruiz’s TopShelf Boutique has been featured in Conde Nast Traveler, on the cover of the San Francisco Examiner, even in American Airlines’ American Way magazine. She says her truck — which really resembles a hip boutique on the interior, filled with brightly colored, ultra-trendy, moderately priced apparel — offers customers “an alternative to crowded malls and other traditional shopping experiences.” (There’s also something inherently awesome about buying clothes out of a truck.)

As for Ochoa, the single mother who couldn’t find a safe and healthy apartment for her kids — well, after participating in a lending circle and taking some personal finance classes, she was able to put together both a deposit and a credit score that finally landed her a decent place. Instead of the disruptions of frequent moves or mold-borne illness, her three children have a place to study, play, and grow.

“I didn’t know anything,” Ochoa says in Spanish. “Now I have a high credit score. For me, it’s changed my life. All of it.”