Valeria Loera had someone come to her recently so down on her financial luck that she was looking at a last resort.
“She said she was going to declare bankruptcy, and I said, why?” Loera said. “People think they’re at their last resort, because they don’t know what to do. So we try to be there for them.”
We, is the Aurora Financial Empowerment Center, 712 S. River St. in Aurora. Loera is a manager there, in charge of counselors who sit down with someone like the woman Loera was talking about to see what can be done.
In the case of that woman, counselors looked at her entire financial situation and had her start paying down her debt. Within a year, she was able to buy a home.
“She never did declare bankruptcy,” Loera said.
That is just one success story at the Financial Empowerment Center, which was started four years ago in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic shutdown with a grant from the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, along with some city of Aurora money and private money raised locally.
The center continues to function with grants from the city, money from places like the Grand Victoria Riverboat Fund and private funding sources. It is staffed by the city of Aurora, and The Neighbor Project, an Aurora not-for-profit that also counsels financial literacy and home ownership.
This month is Financial Literacy Month nationwide, and the Aurora center is celebrating with special workshops and an open house. It also is taking stock of what it has done, and where it’s going.
In the past four years, the center has seen 2,749 clients and had 2,222 outcomes. An outcome means a client has done something like saving 10% of income, reduced debt by 10%, opened a new bank account or even bought a home.
The center has had counselors give more than 5,000 sessions since April 2020.
In total, clients have saved $1 million of their income, and reduced debt by $3.01 million, Loera said.
All the counseling sessions are one-on-one with an individual or couple looking for help, so counselors can learn about their clients and learn about their goals.
Toshia Moss, the Empowerment Center’s innovation program manager, said sessions focus on fundamentals of personal finance, such as budgeting, credit, savings and opening a bank account, and reducing credit card debt.
The ultimate goal is to help people own homes, most of them for the first time.
“I love what we do,” Loera said. “People can come as many times as they need. Some come for years.”
The center gives workshops four times a month, two in English and two in Spanish.
This month, the workshops specializing in budget creation, “Financial Mastery: Budgeting and Saving For Financial Wellness,” will take place in English at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. April 9 and in Spanish at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. April 23.
The center also is sponsoring an open house, “Financial Counseling and Collaboration: Empowering Our Community By Strengthening Outcomes,” from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on Friday, April 26.
All the events will be at the Empowerment Center, 712 S. River St. in Aurora.
The open house will highlight the progress of the Financial Empowerment Center, and also show how it can interact with other non-profits in town.
Moss said the event will showcase opportunities to partner with the center “and strengthen their programs, too.”
Moss added that not only do counselors help to try to fix the immediate financial situation, they empower clients to “show them how to get it done.”
“You’ve got to start somewhere,” she said.
To register for the workshops, go to www.aurora-il.org/FECRegistration.
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