Reflections
LENDING TO THE POOR
By Georgia Beaverson
Robert Lavelle puts obedience to Christ above banking formulas for success.
Glinting on his collar, the pin read, "Try God." But that’s not just a slogan for Robert Lavelle. It’s a way of life.
Lavelle, a black 77-year-old businessman, runs the Dwelling House Savings & Loan and Lavelle Real Estate in Pittsburgh. Both businesses are located in that city’s tough Hill District, where the major business is usually drugs. Despite the neighborhood, neither business has the standard metal grille to protect it from thieves. Lavelle believes that would send the wrong message to the neighborhood’s inhabitants.
"They’re the only businesses in the poor black community of Pittsburgh, and maybe the country, that don’t have one," he points out. "But you see, if I put that grille around me, I’d be telling this community that I’m afraid of them, that I don’t trust them. I’m not afraid of them, and I do trust them. I’m trying to help them see that. Because I love them, I trust them. My very vulnerability is my protection."
Despite this message of love and trust, Lavelle’s savings and loan has been broken into 15 times and robbed at gun point eight times in the 36 years it has been operating. But these events don’t deter him in his calling. In fact, Lavelle used them to talk to the burglars about Christ.
"I asked one (burglar) why he was holding me up. He said, ‘Shut up and give me that money!’ His hands were shaking. I looked at him and said, ‘Here take the money, but you can’t shut me up. I’m here to help you. You’re traveling a dead-end street.’ Behind that stocking, I could see that this was a kid who was maybe 18 or 19. And he didn’t know what to do after I said that. He knew he was listening to the truth."
Lavelle actually had some burglars call to apologize. One woman telephoned to say that her husband needed a fix and he had stolen Lavelle’s computer to get it. Although the computer had already been "hawked," Lavelle invited the woman’s husband to come in and visit him. And six months later, the burglar did come in to tell Lavelle that he knew what Lavelle was trying to do in the neighborhood.
Although the sign says "savings and loan," Lavelle’s major business is investing in people. The old banking rule that commands him to lend at the highest possible rate with the lowest risk has no authority at Dwelling House Savings & Loan. In fact, he pays investors a slightly higher interest rate now when rates are low as a thank you for sticking with the institution when it was paying below-market rates on savings accounts in the 1980’s.
Lavelle deliberately located his businesses in Pittsburgh’s ghetto. There, he invests in poor black people, those whose risk is too high and assets too low to qualify for a conventional bank loan. Dwelling House loans are offered at a realistic rate for the individual consumer. For most poor African-Americans, that means at rates considerably below the market. But Lavelle believes that God sent him there to help provide one of humanity’s basic necessities: shelter.
"We help them economically so that they will have physical needs met in terms of housing and shelter," he explains. "We hope that by meeting that need, other social ills will be addressed. Ills like the break-up of the family—particularly the black family—and the necessity for marriage, for babies not having babies and children growing up without any values at all. If they don’t have necessities, how can they know about God?
Offering very low-interest loans to high-risk individuals is only the beginning for Lavelle. He gets personally involved with each loan applicant, meeting with them to discuss money issues and God. This one-to-one contact enables him to see up close what the individual’s needs are and to help meet those needs.
For instance, if Lavelle sees that an applicant has little or no financial understanding, he takes the time to teach him or her the economic ropes. Hopefully, this will give that person the knowledge and incentive to meet the loan’s obligations.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. Currently, Dwelling House has 150 delinquent loans on its books, which is about one-third of its total loan traffic.
"Sometimes I sit here at night working, and I get pretty discouraged and depressed," Lavelle reveals. "I know each one, not just their names on a payment notice, but these people individually. In many instances, I’ve been to their homes and I know their situations, the sporadic employment and the domestic relationships."
But even though discouragement sometimes attacks him, Lavelle does not give up. When delinquent notices go out, he writes an individual note on each one. He visits those with delinquent loans personally, often on Saturday and Sunday evenings. He discusses the reasons behind the delinquency, and works with the individuals to provide payment options. "We don’t give up until they do," he avows.
Making low-interest loans to high-risk clients also effects how Lavelle handles the savings and loan’s money. He does not borrow from other institutions because he would lose money on the difference between what Dwelling House charges in interest and the interest it pays on funds it borrows. Therefore, loans come solely from investors’ money. The institution also keeps the loans it grants instead of selling them on the market as do many other financial institutions.
Lavelle—who one investor affectionately christened "Saint Bob" —comes naturally by the faith that determines decisions like these. His father was an itinerant evangelist, going "wherever the Lord told him" that he, his wife and his family of eight children should go. Despite his father’s influence and his mother’s unfailing prayers, however, Lavelle did not give his heart to Christ until late in life.
When Lavelle was nine, his father died. But even though he loved his father, he wasn’t attracted to his father’s brand of Christianity. "I just felt that all I needed to do was make money," he recalls. "being a Christian was all right for my dad, but I thought I could be good, I could be a nice guy."
Despite his desire to make money, Lavelle dropped out of high school and took a job shining shoes. Still, his parents’ heritage and reputation dogged his steps. Eventually, after years of night school, he got two degrees and opened a real estate office, eventually taking over a faltering savings and loan. He began to put his vision of low-interest loans for poor people into practice.
His mother continued to pray for her wayward son. "She would tell me that I was a wonderful son, and that everyone spoke so highly of me," Lavelle remembers. "But she’d also tell me that until I knew Jesus as my Savior and Lord, I wasn’t going to know the peace that passes understanding."
Lavelle know he was a pretty good guy. After all, he gave out low-interest loans and he taught a Bible class at church. But his mother knew, and Lavelle, knew, that he didn’t really know Jesus.
"I was pretty proud of myself," Lavelle laughs. "I was a self-made man. But I began to realize that there are no self-made men. There is a God, and I needed him. You don’t really know anyone until you live with them, after you’re made a commitment to them. I didn’t know Jesus because I hadn’t made a commitment to him. I knew all about him and I could teach him. But I didn’t know him."
Eventually, Lavelle’s mother died. In the midst of his grief, he remembered her words to him. "I was sitting in my office, thinking about my life and missing my mother. All the problems, the stressed-out feelings, the anger, the fearfulness, the resentments, the hostility. Yet I was teaching this Bible class. I knew I didn’t have the peace that passes understanding. And I knew I wanted it." So, at 47 years of age, Lavelle began the journey to becoming "Saint Bob."
He hasn’t looked back since. He continues to provide opportunities for the poor, but now for different motives. Now he does it in obedience to Christ. As a result, he’s seen God use him with burglars and with businessmen. And through it all, Robert Lavelle ahs sought to offer Christ’s grace to those with whom he deals.
"Christ gives us all a new opportunity," he points out. "And that’s where everything begins. If we recognize Him and the opportunity He gives us, then we have to be obedient to that opportunity. "I’m in this black community by choice. Jesus says, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’ What’s that command? To love each other. We’re to do that to his glory and honor."
Metier, Volume 1, Number 2, Summer 1993
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