Free financial counseling coming to South Bend

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- The City of South Bend is below the national average in both credit score and median household income, according to its Director of Community Investment, Caleb Bauer. The city is planning free financial planning for its residents 18 and older.

"We believe that financial counseling, a little broader in scope, is something that can really help improve median household income in South Bend," Bauer said. "Certainly, can help people get out from under some predatory forms of debt that exist, like payday lending."

The City of South Bend has big dreams for the Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Center, actively under construction on Linden Avenue on the city's west side, which will open in February or March of next year, Bauer said. When it does, it will be home to South Bend's Financial Empowerment Center.

But the center will soft launch before then, Bauer said, hopefully by the end of this year.

A three-year pilot program will cost about half a million dollars. The city allocated $350,000, and the remaining $150,000 is coming from grant funding from Cities for Financial Empowerment.

Along with the grant funding, the national nonprofit also provides technical assistance for the 22 cities involved.

South Bend will be the first city in Indiana to have a financial empowerment center (FEC).

"There's rigorous data tracking throughout this network, and we'll be part of that," Bauer said. "Looking at outcomes for clients, and that's really what we're focused on. Certainly, providing the counseling resources, but also understanding how those resources translate into dollars, back in people's pockets."

The Dream Center is not in the Near Northwest Neighborhood, and yet, that neighborhood organization was chosen to run operations.

"Financial empowerment is a need that we see basically, daily," said Kathy Schuth, executive director of the Near Northwest Neighborhood, Inc. "Especially to reduce debt load. Any collections they might have, to increase credit scores. That's something that we see holding back families a lot of times from both rental opportunities, homeownership opportunities, entrepreneurship opportunities, and many, many life goals."

Schuth said they will hire a staff of three for the center and are actively seeking two financial counselors for the gig.

"We are a neighborhood-focused nonprofit, but we recognize as we rebuild our neighborhood, and west side neighborhoods, that we're really all in it together," Schuth said. "So, we saw this as a place -- or our board discerned that this is a place where we can step up and really take some leadership in providing financial empowerment."