SMART housing help lives on
Consumer Credit Counseling Service takes over former Catholic Charities program to help low-income citizens find and keep housing
A financial education program that loses its funding this month will live on, thanks to a SMART decision by another Chattanooga nonprofit.
SMART, short for Sound Money And Rental Tools, has helped more than 100 low-income Chattanoogans find housing since its inception five years ago, says its founder, Valerie Brown, program manager at Catholic Charities of East Tennessee.
When officials with Consumer Credit Counseling Service learned of the program’s demise, they deemed it too valuable to die and will continue classes next month. The last class hosted by Brown and Catholic Charities was Thursday.
“We’re planning on picking up where she left off and just keep moving,” says LaTricia Schobert, director of Consumer Credit Counseling Service, a program of the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults.
The only change is in location, Schobert says.
SMART’s goals are to teach potential tenants how to save and budget money, manage credit and be good neighbors.
Brown founded the program in 2012, the same year that one of the largest public housing sites in the city closed, leaving 440 families to find housing.
One year later, the Chattanooga Housing Authority found that less than half the people with housing choice vouchers had found landlords who would accept them. Such vouchers are provided by the federal government to help very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled to find housing in the private market.
Even with the rent subsidies that come with the vouchers, housing can be hard to find — and for one main reason.
“Typically, it’s their credit score,” Schobert says.
Landlords use credit scores to determine if a tenant will pay his rent on time or if he has the capacity to pay rent. If the credit score is poor or nonexistent, then it’s a risk to take that person on as a tenant, she says.
Along with educating residents about money management, SMART asked landlords to count the applicants’ recent financial training, instead of solely their credit score, when considering them for housing.
That cooperation helped put several people in homes, Brown says.
“My little stats don’t look bad,” Brown says. “Since September 2012, I’ve had 730 participants, 271 people to graduate from the program, and we’ve placed 116 people.”
Placing people means the SMART program either helped participants find housing, paid their first month’s rent or paid their housing deposit.
But all funding ends in July, according to Brown.
“My program is basically funded by HUD [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development], and we did have a city of Chattanooga contract, but we don’t have that this year. So my program
is closing down,” she says.
The $22,000 that HUD contributed for the program this year and the city’s $7,000 contract with the program end in July.
To continue the program, city officials advised Brown to apply for a block grant, federal money distributed by the city, but her application was denied. The denial did not explain the reason for the rejection, Brown says.
Consumer Credit Counseling plans to fund the class moving forward through its regular network of voluntary contributions from creditors, client donations, grants and other community-based resources. It will keep the same teachers and format.
The only immediate change will be location. The next class is scheduled at 11 a.m. Thursday, July 27, at the CCCS office next to Office Depot in the Eastgate complex at 5600 Brainerd Road. All classes are open to the public.
Schobert plans to eventually expand the program by offering evening and weekend classes.
“There are so many people in the Chattanooga area who have no idea why they’re not being rented to or what it means to be a good tenant,” says Schobert.
“This program gives them the tools to be good tenants and to have some financial literacy so they can increase their credit score and maybe move up in their living situation, maybe even to home ownership.”
Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@ timesfreepress.com or 423757-6431.