Oportun Inc., a small-dollar loan company, disclosed to investors that it is the subject of a probe by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau following reporting by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica.
Kiah Collier
Kiah Collier was a reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative initiative from 2020 through 2023. She previously worked at the Tribune as a reporter and associate editor, covering energy and the environment through the lens of state government and politics. Kiah has reported for numerous other publications across Texas since 2010, including the Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle. Her beats also have included government and politics, public education and business. Kiah’s work has been honored with numerous prizes, including a George Foster Peabody Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism, the National Edward R. Murrow Award for best investigation and the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. A seventh-generation Texan, she grew up in the Austin area and graduated with high honors from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in journalism and philosophy.
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Texas regulators and lawmakers knew about the grid’s vulnerabilities for years, but time and again they furthered the interests of large electricity providers.
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Hospitals in Austin are running out of water, forcing some to transfer patients
St. David’s South Austin Medical Center said a series of problems began after it lost water pressure from the city Wednesday. Seton hospitals in the area are also facing water problems.
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COVID-19 testing has become a “cash cow” for freestanding ERs in Texas, experts say. And it’s getting out of control.
Freestanding emergency rooms in Texas have been charging patients’ health insurance plans thousands of dollars for a single coronavirus test.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
A lender sued thousands of lower-income Latinos during the pandemic. Now it wants to be a national bank.
Oportun, which lends in only a dozen states, applied for a bank charter late last year. Consumer and Latino civil rights groups are pushing back, citing the findings of a joint investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.
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Health care
Texas can kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program, federal appeals court rules
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday sided with state officials. Planned Parenthood said it will continue to serve patients for now, since the order has not yet taken effect.
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Coronavirus in Texas
This loan company was founded to help Latino immigrants. It has sued thousands of low-income Latinos during the pandemic.
A monthslong investigation revealed that Oportun Inc. routinely uses lawsuits to intimidate a vulnerable population into keeping up with high-interest loan payments — even amid COVID-19.
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The Texas Tribune-ProPublica Investigative Unit
Oportun Inc. has filed nearly 10,000 lawsuits this year against lower-income Texans. This is how we found out.
Justice of the peace courts, where a majority of debt claims are filed in Texas, aren’t required to report case-level information. Here’s how ProPublica and Texas Tribune reporters got around it to reveal one company’s aggressive tactics.
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Coronavirus in Texas
This Silicon Valley-based lender sued thousands of Texans during the pandemic. It stopped when we started asking questions.
The company didn’t say exactly how many pending lawsuits it would drop in Texas and elsewhere, but it confirmed that “several thousand cases” would be impacted.
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Police brutality in Texas
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley will keep his job despite calls for his removal, city says
City Manager Spencer Cronk said Manley assured him that he is committed to making reforms in the police department. City Council members had asked for Manley to resign.