It started when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Treasurer José Cisneros developed a program to encourage low-income families to qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit program. The city was providing a modest financial incentive for households to apply for this anti-poverty effort.
Cisneros noted that many of the families receiving this government assistance did not have traditional bank accounts.
"It just tore me up to think that literally thousands of these people were taking these checks to check-cashing places, where they would have to pay $10, $15 or $30 to cash a check for $100 or $200," Cisneros said last week.
