Knowing the importance of good credit, saving and banking is critical for building and growing wealth, and the city of South Bend plans to teach those things to more people.
As inflation and soaring food and housing costs make life harder for people at lower income levels, the city of South Bend is launching a new personal finance counseling program. They’ll start creating the Financial Empowerment Center later this year, with plans for an office inside the new Dream Center that’s under construction on the city’s west side.
If it sounds like something a nonprofit consumer credit counseling agency would do, it should. Caleb Bauer, the city’s community investment executive director, says the city will look for such a nonprofit to run the program at the Dream Center.
"It depends on the client," Bauer says. "Some people might come in and they might have a really good savings reserve but their credit score might be bad because maybe they don't have a credit card. Maybe they were raised where they don't want to have debt, so they have a really healthy savings situation but they have no credit score because they don't have a credit history."
The city’s redevelopment commission Thursday approved a request to spend $350,000 for the program’s start-up. The money will fund a full-time program director and two full-time counselors.
Bauer says they’re aiming for a soft launch by the end of the year, and they may set up a temporary site to serve the public elsewhere before the Dream Center is finished in 2025.
