PATHWorks Newsletter: OCTOBER 2020
Success Story - Employment - Asset Building - Finances -
Overcoming Barriers - Housing Works Updates - Resources
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Wendy D. PATHWorks Graduate
Wendy received her Housing Choice Voucher assistance in August of 2015 and graduated that same year with her Masters of Arts degree in Organizational Management earlier earning her Bachelors of Arts degree in Social and Criminal Justice in 2013. With her education completed, Wendy decided to challenge herself to become a homeowner and felt like she needed some assistance to put a plan in place. She joined the PATHWorks program in December of 2016. Around the same time she started working at NeighborImpact and was starting on her new career path.
Wendy had challenges with her finances and needed to improve her credit score, which was 558 at the time. She wasn’t following a written budget and with three children to raise and student loans to pay, she knew she had to get her finances in order. She identified her debt and put a plan in place to start paying it down with her annual tax refunds. She struggled at first to create and follow a written budget, but over time she found the discipline to manage her spending and savings.
July, 2017, Wendy applied for a position and was hired by the State of Oregon Unemployment Department as a Bilingual Employment Specialist. With a career path in front of her, and increased income, Wendy opened a Valley Individual Development Account (VIDA), 3:1 matched savings program, to help her save for a down payment for a home. She also started to earn escrow savings due to her increase in earned income. She had a lot of student loan debt, however, she was able to enroll in the Public Student Loan Forgiveness program. It was a big relief to know that after 120 on-time payments (ten years), a large part of her student loans would be forgiven.
With her finances improving, she met with a mortgage broker to evaluate her mortgage readiness. Wendy was making good progress, but in 2019 she was still carrying too much debt and was getting frustrated and discouraged. Instead of giving up she recommitted to her plan and was able to access her escrow savings to help pay down a good portion of her debt. This improved her credit score to 646 and removed one of the barriers to qualifying for a home loan.
In June of 2020, Wendy had everything in place to graduate the PATHWorks program. She maintained suitable employment and completed her other identified goals: to improve her financial capabilities and prepare for homeownership. She completed the MoneySmart financial course and first time homebuyer education. Wendy graduated PATHWorks and decided she was ready to release her housing assistance, which she did on July 1st.
Congratulations Wendy on all you have accomplished. Next stop, homeownership!
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Find Something New
If you are looking for a living wage job, broaden your search to look for a career. Minimum wage jobs will not provide you a sufficient income given the local high cost of living. Explore your options to find something new at https://findsomethingnew.org/. Jobs are changing — and the pandemic has accelerated the pace. Whether you’re entering the workforce for the first time or need to pivot and retrain, skills-based education can put you on the fast track to an in-demand career. There are different paths you can take to pursue a career. You can build your skills with apprenticeships, certification programs, post-secondary education, vocational and technical trades, or online learning. Find Something New is just one of the many resources to look into when exploring ways to increase your income. You won't know whats out there if you don't look. An exciting career is waiting! If you would like to be connected to a local employment specialist, contact WorkSource. Find a new way forward.
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The Latest from the CFPB
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a consumer finance marketplace that works for American consumers, responsible providers, and the economy as a whole. It regulates the offering and provision of consumer financial products or services under the federal consumer financial laws and educates and empowers consumers to make better informed financial decisions. The CFPB is committed to providing you with up-to-date information and resources to help you protect and manage your finances during this difficult time.
See the videos and resources below for more information.
Despite the changes in operations brought by the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, the CFPB is on the job fielding on average 30,000 complaints a month.
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If you made accommodations with your lenders or creditors due to financial hardships related to coronavirus, follow these steps to ensure that your credit reports and scores are not negatively impacted.
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Scammers take advantage of people during times of stress, fear, and uncertainty. CFPB offers three ways people can keep their money safe from fraudsters during the coronavirus pandemic.
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4) Five tips for when you can’t pay your bills If you don’t have enough money to cover your needs and obligations, you may have to make a short-term plan to get through the month. Here are some tips to help you think through your options.
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The CFPB provides many resources and tools to help you with all your financial questions. The consumer tools and practitioner resources are our go-to guides for financial guidance. Check them out here.
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Building Assets
Together, asset-building and financial capability through increased earnings can help you achieve long-term goals.
Assets are savings and possessions of value (e.g., car, house, stocks and bonds).
Why assets matter:
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Assets help families weather financial shocks, such as job loss, a broken-down car, or unexpected medical expenses.
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Assets help families invest in the future – for example, to pay for education, start a business, or buy a home.
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Assets help families build confidence and hope for a better future, which can be a powerful motivation for taking action to achieve their goals.
Building blocks of financial capability:
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Financial knowledge (sometimes called ‘financial literacy’)
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The financial skills and behaviors to meet family goals – for example, budgeting, saving, checking (and correcting) one’s credit report and safe use of credit and other financial products
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Access to financial opportunities and resources necessary to meet these goals – for example, access to a free or low-cost checking account and access to low-cost credit
Financial capability skills include how to make and stick to a budget, avoid and reduce debt, and save to meet short- and long-term goals. These skills can help you:
- Free up funds in your budgets to meet key needs, such as buying nutritious food for your family or repairing a car needed to get to work
- Use savings and investments to achieve long-term goals
- Improve your credit scores to access reasonably priced credit cards, mortgages, and small business loans
Accumulating assets built through increasing earnings from employment can help you achieve such goals as homeownership, starting a small business, obtaining post-secondary education, and buying a car. Most of these assets – for example, post-secondary education and a car – can in turn help you obtain higher-paying jobs, contributing to higher incomes.
Growing financial capability helps low-income individuals avoid costly financial pitfalls that maintain a cycle of debt and poverty.
Financial health and capability are closely related to other areas of personal, professional, and financial opportunity. For example, landlords often check credit reports and scores before leasing an apartment, and employers often check these when evaluating a job applicant for employment.
Here is a Financial Statement template provided by Score for you to get started evaluating your current finances. Complete this Financial Well-Being questionnaire to find out your current financial well-being and steps you can take to improve it. Once you know where you are, you can determine where you want to end up and start making short- and long-term goals to get there. It may surprise you that you have more than you think you do.
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School Age Childcare Options
With in-person K-12 public schooling delayed in many communities across Oregon, families need to know what options are available for safe child care for their school-age children. The Early Learning Division (ELD), the state agency responsible for regulating early education and child care, is sharing information with families about the current childcare options available in Central Oregon . Please click on the link below for more information.
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Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation
Every day we take on the ordinary, sometimes challenging, tasks of work, school, parenting, relationships, and just managing our busy lives. How do we navigate these tasks successfully? And what can send us off course? Science offers an explanation. The 5-minute video below explores the development and use of core capabilities — known as executive function and self-regulation skills — from early childhood into adolescence and adulthood.
Building on the Center on Developing Child 2013 video presenting the theory that building adult capabilities is necessary to improve outcomes, this new video describes what these skills are, why they are important, how they develop, and how they are affected by stress. It combines an allegorical “scribe” storytelling technique with new animation of brain development to show how positive conditions support the development of these skills, and how adverse conditions make it harder to build and use them.
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Canyon Edge
Redmond Property
If you have been watching the construction off Canal and Reindeer in Redmond, you may have noticed that the buildings are nearly completed. Canyon Edge consists of 3 buildings with 67 one, two and three-bedroom units that are available for rent to households with incomes up to 60% of the area median income (AMI). EPIC Property Management has been busy accepting applications and will start moving residents in this month.
The homes come nicely equipped with conveniences such as dishwashers and washers/dryers in the three-bedroom homes. They have been designed to complement and enhance the surrounding neighborhood and have open floor plans with natural light, LED light fixtures and energy star appliances, helping to save residents money on their utilities. A leasing office and laundry facility is onsite along with a community room for residents use, playground and walking path.
Funding for the development came from federal tax credits through Oregon Housing and Community Services and Local Innovative Fast Track (LIFT) through Oregon Housing. The general contractor was R&H Construction who has built many of Housing Works’ affordable communities throughout Central Oregon and the architect for the new community was Pinnacle Architecture.
Housing Works has several new communities scheduled to start construction before the end of this year. Midtown Place, 47 apartments in Redmond, serving households from 30% up to 80% of AMI; Legacy Landing in Bend, a mixed use building with 47 apartments of senior housing with Mosaic Medical Clinic on the ground floor and Phoenix Crossing, also a mixed use building with 24 apartments serving intellectually and developmentally disabled and survivors of domestic violence with office space on the ground floor in Bend; and lastly, Barnes Butte Vista, 44 apartments and townhomes of workforce housing serving households from 30% to 60% AMI in Prineville. These communities should be completed by fall 2021. Watch the New Rental Communities page on Housing Works’ website for updates.
Applications are typically accepted 2-3 months prior to construction completion. These will be managed by EPIC Property Management, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Housing Works. Please check https://epicopenings.net to find out which of Housing Works’ affordable properties located throughout Central Oregon, are currently taking applications.
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Housing Choice Voucher Program
Waiting List Opening
The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program Waiting List will open:
Monday, January 11th, 2021 (8 am) through
Friday, January 15th, 2021 (5 pm)
This program is open to low-income qualified residents of Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. Applicants must apply online at www.oregonhousingworks.org .
The time you apply during the week does not impact your position on the waiting list. All applications taken during the open period will be randomized by a computer and placed on the waiting list to give all applicants an equal chance. All current applications are purged from the waiting list on December 31st. Anyone who is currently on the waiting list needs to reapply to the 2021 list.
If you are a partner agency helping community members apply to the HCV Program Waiting List and would like additional assistance before it opens for a virtual presentation or training session, please contact Housing Works Housing Director: Lesly Gonzalez. You can email her at: lgonzalez@housing-works.org or call her at: (541) 323-7416.
Technical assistance will be available over the phone during waitlist week. If you need assistance completing your application, please contact Housing Works at
541-923-1018 during regular business hours. You may also email us at frontdesk@housing-works.org. Additionally, Housing Works has partnered with different service providers around Central Oregon that can assist you with completing your application online.
- DHS
- J Bar J
- Cascade Youth & Family Services
- LCA
- Thrive CO
- Deschutes County Mental/Behavioral Health
- Saving Grace
- Best Care
- FAN
- Bend/LaPine, Redmond, Sisters, Jefferson and County Schools
- COVO
- Bend VA
- Mosaic Medial
COVID-19 Public Housing Authority Waivers
On April 10th, 2020, HUD issued a list of waivers allowing PHAs additional flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. HUD issued an extension to these waivers and added five new waivers for the HCV program. To view the list of waivers implemented by Housing Works for its Housing Choice Voucher Program, we highly encourage you to visit Housing Works website at www.housing-works.org.
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