How did a Sacramento financial resource center try to address a ‘banking desert’?

Until 2024, one of Sacramento’s historically Black communities, Del Paso Heights, had no financial institutions.

While there were plenty of convenient cash checking services and a nearby Wells Fargo, banking options were limited until Golden 1 Credit Union opened its Financial Resource Center (FRC) in January.

“One of the things that we see, especially as financial coaches, is how much those payday loan places thrive in these areas where there is a banking desert, because it’s easy for people to get to it,” said Barbara Quan, the FRC’s manager of financial education.

During 2020, financial institutions pledged million dollar donations and promised to enact equitable change within their field as the country plunged into a racial reckoning. Golden 1 Credit Union began brainstorming ways to contribute to actionable change, according to a spokesperson.

While the idea was formulated in 2020, the implementation began in 2023, when Golden 1 Credit Union pledged $10 million dollars over the course of five years to invest in four different community organizations in Del Paso Heights, in addition to opening the FRC.

Four years after 2020, the FRC is one of the tangible outcomes.

What does the FRC offer?

Located on the corner of Marysville Boulevard and Grand Avenue, the FRC is housed within the lower floor of the Greater Sacramento Urban League building, a trusted, longstanding institution.

The FRC doubles as a learning institution and the neighborhood’s only full-service financial center. Employees are cross-trained to be able to provide clients with whatever financial services they might need, said Elyse Lockman, the center’s manager.

Clients can find free one-on-one financial coaching sessions and financial workshops which are hosted every month in the FRC’s community room. Some are geared toward parents while others might apply to high school and college students.

While banks and credit unions may offer similar services, the two differ on many levels. Banks are for-profit institutions, either privately owned or publicly traded. Although banks are the most popular financial entity in the United States, historical patterns of discrimination have led to high interest rates or denying service in Black and brown communities.

About 11% of Black households and 9% of Hispanic households are considered “unbanked” or without a financial institution. Only about 2% of white households are without banking institutions, according to the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Participants of the national survey cited “not trusting banks” as a reason for not having a bank account.

Lockman said the credit union understood that building trust within the community you operate in takes work and time.

“We didn’t just do the donation, we did the action behind the donation… and put something tangible behind the words,” said Lockman.

Success through financial literacy

The FRC offers free one-on-one financial coaching sessions, open to anyone regardless of residency, age or economic status.

La Trell Adams, a 22-year-old community college student, learned about the coaching sessions through a digital upscaling class he took at the Greater Sacramento Urban League. While Adams was taught by his parents to save his money, he didn’t know anything else.

Corben Wilson, one of the FRC’s certified financial coaches, taught Adams the envelope method. The model uses fake money to represent a paycheck to divide dollars between expenses. One envelope can be for rent, another for groceries, another for a credit card bill and so forth.

Using this method, Adams said he saved $850 in three months and bought a $600 camera to aid him in his freelance photography and editing job.

The Golden 1 Credit Union has also invested in four different community organizations including Mutual Assistance Network (MAN), a social services organization committed to “promoting social and economic opportunities so families can thrive,” said Director Katy Robb.

MAN operates three community centers, one being in Del Paso Heights. Through the funding given by Golden 1, MAN is able to sustain two of their economic equity tracks: their passport to adulthood program and their assets and wealth building program.

In both of these programs, participants undergo coaching sessions offered by the FRC.

SaMarah Willis works as a Family Resource Educator at the Firehouse Community Center on Grand Ave. Willis is actively going through the assets and wealth building program and has seen her credit score increase since beginning it.

Willis recently graduated college and is looking to buy a house in a few years. “All of these things need financial planning, and so Golden 1 has been very essential to my growth in the financial aspect of my life,” she said.

Not only has Willis been able to help herself through the FRC, but the families she works with as well.

“Sometimes the families that I case manage, they’ll say things like, ‘Oh, I’m having trouble with budgeting,’ or ‘oh, I don’t want to buy a house in the future, but I don’t quite know what kind of steps I need to take now,’’ she said.

Willis said she now has first-hand knowledge on how to help them and can segue them into the assets and wealth building program as well.

Courtney McKinney, Golden 1’s social impact program manager, called this a “ripple effect.”

“We’re all creating these ripples and hopefully that’s what creates generational and community impact,” McKinney said.