our report is by "news hour" special correspondent carla murphy. >> reporter: for host of us, going to the local bank to deposit a check is second nature but for many poor people in the south bonks, it's not. more than half the residents here don't have a bank account. so on a friday afternoon, customers trickle into right check, a check cashing store. they are paying bills, buying money orders and cashing checks criticized seeming to exploit the poor by charging high fees. on this day, one of the tellers is not like the others. she's a professor of urban policy at the new school in manhattan and her job at this check cashing store is part of a research project to find why people choose to come here despite the fees, rather than going to a bank. what were your impressions? >> i thought the same thing in the press. i would say the literature that called check cashers abusive and predatory, and, you know, being businesses really taking advantage of the poor. so i believed that. >> reporter: but that belief is challenged when a man that runs a business visited lisa's class as a guest lect