Saturday, February 20, 2010 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY AND TAVIA GRANT
TORONTO — No conventional bank in its right mind would give Cleoni Crawford a loan.
And she can recite, from memory, the responses she got when she tried.
” ‘You’re going to need a co-signer, there’s nothing we can do.’ ‘Do you have any assets, do you have any savings?'”
She rolls her eyes, holds her hands up, empty. “Um, hello?”
Ms. Crawford was operating her fashion-design business out of her home at Jane and Sheppard, lugging clothing samples on the bus to visit potential clients.
She also had a credit rating that would give a banker the shakes. In 2006, within seven months of graduating from the University of Toronto with a pile of student loans, she defaulted on her credit-card debt.
a business of misfits 