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SOUTH BEND — The city of South Bend will pilot Indiana’s first financial counseling program at the Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Center, leaders announced.
The Financial Empowerment Center will provide South Bend residents with one-on-one sessions on basic financial planning principles, including how to improve credit scores, pay off debt and increase savings. Participants do not have to pay for this counseling.
“Campus of Liberation”: Take a look at the plans for the Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Center in South Bend.
More than 30 such centers exist in U.S. cities through a partnership with the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, a project of Bloomberg Philanthropies. The organization plans to grant the city $150,000 to fund the first two years of the program, but the South Bend Redevelopment Commission voted Thursday to allocate $350,000 to the plan. did.
The South Bend program will be the first such center in Indiana, said Marty Kennedy, an EnFocus fellow who is working with the city to implement the program. The city’s investment will fund a full-time manager and her two full-time financial counselors for two years.
Caleb Bauer, executive director of the Office of Community Investment, said the city will select a nonprofit partner to manage the center’s day-to-day operations, which will be overseen by South Bend city staff.
“The goal is to prove the concept here in South Bend in the first two years and then take it to other philanthropic partners,” Bauer said, continuing the program.
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Data collected by the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund shows success in four key subject areas: increasing savings, reducing debt, improving credit scores, and managing bank accounts.
For residents who tried to keep their money secretly, the program led to an average savings increase of $3,770. Sessions focused on debt repayment led to an average savings of $5,350. Credit scores increased by 38 points across participants. People closed an average of 1.3 delinquent bank accounts.
The program will be implemented at the Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Center when the building opens in early 2025. Other temporary drop-in clinics may be scattered around the city, Bauer said.
Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
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