Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The new program area we focused is Homebuyer Education (HBE).The families we wanted to expand services for are low-income families that are employed and fall within HUDS low-income guidelines which is updated and published annually.Many of these families are either:single parent households,one income households or a family where both parents are earning a little above minimum wage.These families attended financial literacy classes and find ways to make their earned income stretch, although they are working families,it is still a financial struggle month to month.Many times the families referred to themselves as the"working poor" and they wanted to transition from surviving to thriving.There are areas these families share in common: utilize checking/savings, stable employment,contributing money towards retirement,maintained on time rental payments and majority expressed interest in homeownership.We co-hosted "Pathways Home curriculum" train-the-trainer with National American Indian Housing Council.4 of the Tribal comm. are providing HBE classes and budget and/or credit counseling.The two other tribal communities have interest in providing HBE classes/services however, felt they were not in a place to get classes or services up and going.They would like to build homes for tribal members to rent and purchase and long term goal is to provide HBE services and classes for their tribal members.The HBE trainers in past utilized employees of Financial Institutions/banks and outside resources to teach classes and work with clients.Many of the trainers expressed being empowered and felt confident to return to their communities and four tribal communities offered their first trainings within a few months after the T-O-T.Second program areais Youth financial lit and entrepreneurship.We received more requests to teach younger populations on various topics.Many of the workshops,classes and conferences were single presentation.Within the past 12 months there has been a huge push for financial education for college and high school students surrounding the topic"Financially preparing students for the cost of college."NWIC noticed a trend that between fall and winter quarter there was a significant number of students that don't return. Many of the students were students that were successful academically and after a closer look realized that students lacked funding and had balances on their account that prevented them from enrolling in winter quarter.Initially,we used other workbook and resources and realized we needed tailor teaching materials including the workbook.We begin developing a workbook for students that was intended to be part of the orientation for new NWIC students.The workbook includes the cost of NWIC tuition,fees,housing/dorm cost and meal plan,important deadlines and applying for Financial Aid,Where to find funds:Tribal Higher education funds,where to find scholarships and grants,jobs and work students and additional tribal resources.Cost of student loans,goal setting,developing a budget and a list of what to bring to college.This workshop will be offered at the beginning of every quarter and hope to expand to our extended campus sites. PARTICIPANTS: HBE classes we offered to the Lummi community we received great feedback from the participants.The class survey results included:80 percent learned the steps they need to take in order to prepare themselves for purchasing a home, 80 percent gained understanding of the advantage of renting a home vs. buying a home, 60 percent would like to learn more about homebuyer program that are available to them and what home financing option are available to Native American or Alaskan Native. We asked the families to list things that they learned that will help them reach their goal some of the top responses: learning credit is very important, no late payments, learned repair and rehab are ok with HUD 184, monitor spending with care, most important thing I learned was the language and terminology,learned what loans are available on tribal trust and what I must do to qualify.The areas participants requested more assistance is home improvement loans,finding a home,budgeting,down payment assistance that is available, credit,home site process, investing and mortgage/loan process.Other ways we can improve is shorter classes spread out over more days,offer classes to high school students during the summer programs and to our younger population so they can work towards making the right choices to purchase a home one day.Another goal we would like to accomplish is have college students' help with the high school classes to share their experiences and transition to college and provide students with real life stories so they can begin to envision and prepare what college will be like. We have each class complete a pre-survey which gathers student perceptions and this is some of the feedback from group one which had 13 students take the pre-survey and this is their response to plans after high school: 84.6 percent said I want to attend a two- year college or four-year college, 7.7 percent have started planning for college,15.4 percent started planning to get into a job training program,53.8 percent want to get a job, 15.4 percent have started looking for a job,7.7 percent not sure at the moment.A question we asked,what they are interested in learning about money:how to save,how to save it and not go shopping when I get money in my hands,credit,how to manage and save money-scholarships,how to budget money and saving properly,ways to save,I would like to know some smart ways to save money and spreading money out for life,anything that helps me make money,I hope to learn more about college,saving account and scholarship help.One outcome from teaching classes and capturing data from the students and evaluating our classes we discover a large portion of students dream or aspire to own a business or become self employed.Which I think aligns with entrepreneurial ism and NWIC business faculty and staff discussed ways to help native families/incoming students pursue that goal. One idea that is in the early infancy stage of discussion is a one year certificate program for entrepreneurs and the college also recently approved a Bachelor of Arts in Tribal Governance and Business Management. TARGET AUDIENCES: Organizations that are developing programs and services for families pursing homeownership or working towards financially preparing high school students for college. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
HBE trainers that received certification have reported that they identified partners and resources that to offer ongoing HBE classes/services.Trainers identified guest speakers, sponsors for HBE classes.A best practice that was reported from the trainers is that HBE participants expressed classes not long enough.Trainers agreed a class should be a series of small classes over 2 -3 mos. and establish monthly meetings with each family.Take away from this project is that we realized each community does not have the same service providers or tribal organization/resources.Any project that involves a number of comm. cannot approach the work with a cookie cutter approach. The trainer's provided feedback about the t-o-t and the activities they enjoyed included: jeopardy,examples/worksheets, creativity, realistic scenarios,ice breakers,networking,learned new ideas,interactive games to reinforce learning materials,every topic covered, trainer's mini presentations (teach backs)and curriculum was relevant to the population and communities we serve.We also asked them to identify things they learned that will help with their job their responses included: family budgeting, cleaning up credit,materials to review with clients,how to read some of the homeownership forms,explaining credit to clients,calculating income, front end/back end ratios, training techniques,materials needed to teach classes, reviewed how to use exercises in the training manual, financial calculations,tribal and allotted land difference,pre-qualifying clients applying for a loan,one-on-one techniques and calculating affordability. We asked the trainers to identify areas they needed more training: ratios,factors,environmental study, credit reports/repair,debt management,one-on-one counseling and predatory lenders.With each trainer we were able to provide individual mentoring in the areas they felt they needed more training and also provided them with resources or books that cover more in depth in each area they needed more training.Only two families that completed the HBE classes were able to become first time homebuyers.A young family that has not used credit other than to purchase a car and is working full-time and pursuing their education qualified for down payment assistance and over 18 months time was able to purchase a home after finding a home that was priced right and met their family needs. The other family took between 8-10 months to choose the right home because this was a single parent household and wanted to find something reasonably priced,one story they shared was after living in the home just under a year her water heater went out and she had to replace it and she felt lucky to have savings.One goal is to have other homeowners that utilized the section 184 home loan and/or attended the HBE class come guest speak and share stories about their challenges and rewards with the homeownership process.After completing the first round of classes with the H.S.a counselors suggested adding info about the ACT and SAT.This curriculum was geared for students that are already in college.We are finding that we will have to revise and build the curriculum as we go.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Through our partnerships with Native American communities and organizations whose goals are tribal asset-building and financial empowerment, we create the shifts in definition, behavior and engagement. With the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation (UIATF), we provided financial education to their youth program for Native American homeless youth. At the Suquamish and Muckleshoot Tribes, we worked with mental health/recovery and problem gambling clients, families on TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), who are economically challenged due to a variety of issues.At Suquamish, we offered Grocery Shopping on a Budget workshops for women in recovery. As a result of our work, Suquamish Tribal Child Support and Enforcement have begun to rethink how their agency operates and is looking at being less of a collection agency as in the mainstream model, to more of a supportive org. that provides financial ed. to clients who are paying child support. They feel this would educate parents while making them more effective in meeting their monthly obligations and being a better support for their children.At the Makah Tribe, we began working with tribal members on drug court and TANF. While these clients are required to attend class,clients were more open and engaged with the material because they are learning from and sharing with each other.The most common requested material from the classes is around money values. Individuals come to identify how they developed their relationship with money and begin to understand their money culture.Many people realize that their relationship with money is learned by observing parents or caregivers manage their money. Many of the youth we worked with have summer jobs or are in a workforce development program (Youth Build), we focused on how youth treat their paycheck. Skills learned are where to cash it, avoiding high-fee check cashing services (Money Tree), goal setting and action planning to achieve them. We worked with summer youth programs in Seattle, Suquamish, Makah, and Lummi. We offered weekly classes for 16-21 year-olds who are working on construction trade skills and receive a regular paycheck.At Lummi, we also co-sponsored a teen girls conference for 15 girls ages 13-17.March 2011, we co-hosted "Pathways Home curriculum" train-the-trainer with National American Indian Housing Council. 12 participants representing 6 northwest tribal communities attended and three new certified HBE trainers at Lummi. We developed new year-round financial lit. activities, community workshops, and classes based on client interest.These include: Homebuyer Ed., one-on-one financial and credit counseling and youth financial lit. PARTICIPANTS: This past year, we have had the opportunity to work with different populations and organization that serve Native families. Many of the families or individuals were low-income native american families and/or college students. We also have received requests from Mental health/recovery and problem gambling programs to work with their clients. The largest request is to bring awareness of the individuals money culture or how they perceive money and also to taking a closer look at an individuals values and does they spending habits reflect what they value most. If a person says family is most important is the first priorities on their list shelter, food and basic family needs Or do they prioritize entertainment and wants over needs Many of our evaluations from our family or adult financial education classes have included responses such as: I wish they had this class when I was in high school, or do they teach this type of class to my children, or this should be a high school required class. These type of responses have confirmed that we need to began to start financial education classes with our Youth and especially those that are receiving benefits or paychecks through participating in summer youth programs or workforce development programs (youth build). One shift that we have seen is that grant funders are requiring college students that receive money from their organization such as American Indian Higher Education Consortium is requiring their embry scholars to attend financial education class/workshop prior to receiving their grant for the academic year. Many of the college students that we work with participate in our workshop or class when we guest teach in the HMDV class which is the Intro to Successful Learning class. There is on average 20-25 students per quarter. This year we had 45 students in the fall quarter and we have received request from the college president to expand classes and activities to our college students. TARGET AUDIENCES: One specific new program area that we are focusing on in this grant is homebuyer education. There are a number of down payment assistance programs available in tribal communities and in Washington State however, this does not improve the number of homeowners in the communities that we are serving. Majority of the communities we work with do not provide homebuyer education or financial education to their families or clients. there are a couple of communities that have a bank or lender come into the community to teach a series of classes as a requirement to receive down payment assistance but they say it is a different experience because the lender speaks from a mainstream perspective versus a tribal community perspective. Many tribal members want to build homes on reservation or tribal trust land and in the past Tribal housing programs would build the home with HUD funding and the family would buy the home over a specific length of time and at a reduced rate. Due to funding cuts many housing authorities are unable to build homes and are asking families to mortgage qualify for home loans and we have witness there are a number of obstacles that prevent families from buying a home. credit issues, no checking or savings, no money for down payment or closing costs,lack of credit history, no assets, affordability is too low and all of these obstacles and challenges that arise in the mortgage process can be discouraging to first time homebuyers. This is why there is a push in tribal communities for families to become educated in the homebuyer ed. process and tribes are putting money into down payment assistance programs. Even with money available for closing costs and down payments there are other challenges that families are working through when they apply for their home mortgage. This is why we wanted to expand financial education to include asset building and homebuyer education. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
In general, many of our participants have learned this information for the first time and have already begun to make informed decisions about their finances.Still,some struggle with holding onto their money.Increasing our staff has allowed the trainers to provide more one-on-one financial counseling.Meetings with Lummi and other tribal agencies and partners have helped to identity the problems and consider solutions that we can work on together.Results of survey and follow-up meetings:Of the financial literacy participants who participated in our survey,86% said they were motivated to manage money better and that it gave them new ideas for getting started with managing money;79% said the workshop provided them with resources and materials they could use. At Lummi,six month voluntary follow-up gatherings were held.Participants were asked how helpful specific financial skills were in managing money. Of the 27 respondents at these gatherings,74% reported that budgeting and developing a spending plan was very helpful,whole 63% said tracking expenses either weekly or monthly was very helpful. When asked how they manage their money,74% said they opened a checking or savings account,50% said they budget monthly,52% said they clip and use coupons.With their new skills,56% said they were able to make money last longer most or all of the time.Everyone said that they share their skills with either family,friends and co-workers.In addition to the first workshops,staff support participants in practicing their skills through one-on-one financial and credit counseling.The majority of people said they would like follow-up support.Workshop topics of interest included:identity theft,understanding borrowing,investments,credit repair options, savvy shopping,renting to homeownership,teaching children about money,and how consumers can sniff out a scam. Interest in so many new workshops indicated a higher level of engagement in developing financial literacy and asset-building.Lastly,a training for trainers was hosted a Lummi and now three HBE trainers are prepared to deliver classes at Lummi,with six more from partner tribes and organizations.Other tribal communities want to know how we are able to financially support the work that we do and how they can implement our model of cost-sharing in their community.We are beginning to define our own best practices in terms of program effectiveness and sustainability.For example, we use cost-sharing with partners in the Lummi community to mobilize resources.We can share this with our partners who are developing financial lit.programs and have begun to provide tech, assistance for tribal partners on this level in achieving sustainability.Some partners are identifying their partners in terms of sharing resources/cost-sharing, and identifying potential trainers who will be participating in new t-of-t.Our training of trainers has adapted to the needs of our partners by providing tech. assistance in this area.While new trainers will share financial ed. curriculum used in workshops and classes,future initiatives include convening a new group of trainers to develop new curriculum based on the ongoing needs of Native communities.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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