Active Payday Loan Establishment in the City of Windsor
Geospatial representation of the City’s 17 licensed PLE’s illustrates the clustering and relationship between PLE’s in Windsor and neighbourhoods with high levels of low -income. Although payday lending has moved to provide options online, 92 percent of licensed payday loans on both a volume and value basis occurs in physical "bricks and mortar" stores, with the remaining 8 percent occurring through online dealers (Bond, 2016).
Schedule B is a standard heat map showing the clustering of payday loans across the City. Within each heat map cluster, the number inside the circle represents how many PLE’s are in the cluster. The larger the circle, the greater number of payday loans. Schedule C is a map that plots each PLE location in Windsor and overlays income data from the 2016 Canadian Census. Using the Low-Income Measure – After Tax (LIM-AT), the darker green areas have a higher prevalence of low-income, while the lighter shaded areas have a lower prevalence of low-income. Although the maps indicate where PLE’s are located in Windsor, no local data is available about consumers and reasons for using payday loans.
Additional costs attributed to municipalities may be incurred due to an increase in social disorder, crime, and an increase in demand for human and social services (Dijkema, 2018, p.4). An analysis of crime incident reports by the Windsor Police Service associated with PLE’s over five years (2015 -2019) does not appear to generate an excessive quantity of incidents requiring police response and intervention. However, the data shows a quarter of all licensed PLE’s are associated with more substantial volumes of police response in the same five-year span.
The nature of the incidents varies and, in no particular order, includes robbery (thefts that involved violence), disorderly conduct, fraud, threats, and suspicious persons. Although data across Canada do show a relationship between payday lending and adverse outcomes in both the community and individual household, the causal relationship is not clear (Dijkema, 2018).
Additional Considerations: Financial Awareness & Advocacy
Consistent with the City of Windsor’s 20 Year Vision, the Quality of Life pillar promotes:
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strengthening neighbourhoods to ensure that they are safe, caring and meet the needs of residents;
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creating the conditions to alleviate poverty and ensuring a high quality of life is accessible for all; and
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choices that support a healthy environment.