Author: Julie Birkenmaier
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351202294
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Global economic recovery in the aftermath of the Great Recession has not been experienced equally: while the share of wealth owned by the richest 3% has grown, the share owned by the poorest 90% continues to decline, as reported by Oxfam in 2016. This wealth divide disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minority communities. This book underscores the importance of financial capability and asset building (FCAB) practice, policy and research during a period when vulnerable populations face increasingly difficult economic and financial realities. At the same time, retrenchment and privatization of government-sponsored social services have eroded the safety net available for families experiencing poverty or near-poverty conditions. The proliferation of products and services available from both formal and informal financial institutions highlights the need to promote FCAB to avoid and/or recover from financial difficulties, crises and poverty. The contributors to this volume disseminate findings from interventions designed to increase financial knowledge, financial management and financial access across several vulnerable populations, including immigrant communities. Further, they demonstrate the need for culturally sensitive FCAB service delivery, considering opportunities and barriers posed by past and current life situations, experiences and environments experienced by different populations. The book is aimed at policymakers, researchers and practitioners who assist financially vulnerable people. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Community Practice.
Author: Margaret Sherraden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190238577
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473
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Book Description
Financial struggles of American families are headline news. In communities across the nation, families feel the pinch of stagnant and sometimes declining incomes. Many have not recovered from the Great Recession, when millions lost their homes and retirement savings. They are bombarded daily with vexing financial decisions: Which bills to pay? Where to cash checks? How to cover an emergency? How to improve a credit report? How to bank online? How to save for the future? Low- and moderate-income families have few places to turn for guidance on financial matters. Not many can afford to pay a financial advisor to help navigate an increasingly complex financial world. They do their best with advice from family and trusted individuals. Social workers, financial counselors, and human services professionals can help. As "first responders," they assist families and help in finding financial support from public and private sources. But these professionals are too often unprepared to address the full range of financial troubles of ordinary working families. Financial Capability and Asset Building in Vulnerable Households prepares social workers, financial counselors, and other human service professionals for financial practice with vulnerable families. Building on more than 20 years of research, the book sets the stage with key concepts, historical antecedents, and current financial challenges of families in America. It provides knowledge and tools to assist families in pressing financial circumstances, and offers a lifespan perspective of financial capability and environmental influences on financial behaviors and actions. Furthermore, the text details practice principles and skills for direct interventions, as well as for designing financial services and policy innovations. It is an essential resource for preparing the next generation of practitioners who can enable families to achieve economic security and development.
Author: Margaret S. Sherraden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190238569
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 473
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Book Description
Financial Capability and Asset Building in Vulnerable Households is the first book of its kind. It prepares students and practitioners for financial practice. This comprehensive text offers knowledge and skills to enable families to improve their financial circumstances, and to promote policies and services for household economic security and development.
Author: Julie Birkenmaier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199344167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
This book introduces the concept of financial capability and assembles the latest evidence from ground-breaking innovations with financially vulnerable families, and links it to education, policy, and practice. This book is a key resource for those interested in improving financial education and financial products and services for low-income families.
Author: Julie Birkenmaier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199755957
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
This book introduces the concept of financial capability and assembles the latest evidence from ground-breaking innovations with financially vulnerable families, and links it to education, policy, and practice. It is a key resource for those interested in improving financial education and financial products and services for low-income families.
Author: R. Cramer
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349481965
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
The economy's struggles to overcome the lingering effects of the Great Recession presented unique but essential questions.The book considers a full range of data which considers how this recent experience has impacted households, providing a thorough and contemporary treatment of how the assets perspective has prompted changes within social policy.
Author: Frederick F. Wherry
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448847
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
An estimated 45 million adults in the U.S. lack a credit score at time when credit invisibility can reduce one’s ability to rent a home, find employment, or secure a mortgage or loan. As a result, individuals without credit—who are disproportionately African American and Latino—often lead separate and unequal financial lives. Yet, as sociologists and public policy experts Frederick Wherry, Kristin Seefeldt, and Anthony Alvarez argue, many people who are not recognized within the financial system engage in behaviors that indicate their credit worthiness. How might institutions acknowledge these practices and help these people emerge from the financial shadows? In Credit Where It’s Due, the authors evaluate an innovative model of credit-building and advocate for a new understanding of financial citizenship, or participation in a financial system that fosters social belonging, dignity, and respect. Wherry, Seefeldt, and Alvarez tell the story of the Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco-based organization that assists mostly low- and moderate-income people of color with building credit. The Mission Asset Fund facilitates zero-interest lending circles, which have been practiced by generations of immigrants, but have gone largely unrecognized by mainstream financial institutions. Participants decide how the circles are run and how they will use their loans, and the organization reports their clients’ lending activity to credit bureaus. As the authors show, this system not only helps clients build credit, but also allows them to manage debt with dignity, have some say in the creation of financial products, and reaffirm their sense of social membership. The authors delve into the history of racial wealth inequality in the U.S. to show that for many black and Latino households, credit invisibility is not simply a matter of individual choices or inadequate financial education. Rather, financial marginalization is the result of historical policies that enabled predatory lending, discriminatory banking and housing practices, and the rollback of regulatory protections for first-time homeowners. To rectify these inequalities, the authors propose common sense regulations to protect consumers from abuse alongside new initiatives that provide seed capital for every child, create affordable short-term loans, and ensure that financial institutions treat low- and moderate-income clients with equal respect. By situating the successes of the Mission Asset Fund in the larger history of credit and debt, Credit Where It’s Due shows how to prioritize financial citizenship for all.
Author: Gary Paul Green
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1483387011
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 477
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Book Description
A comprehensive approach focused on sustainable change Asset Building and Community Development, Fourth Edition examines the promise and limits of community development by showing students and practitioners how asset-based developments can improve the sustainability and quality of life. Authors Gary Paul Green and Anna Haines provide an engaging, thought-provoking, and comprehensive approach to asset building by focusing on the role of different forms of community capital in the development process. Updated throughout, this edition explores how communities are building on their key assets—physical, human, social, financial, environmental, political, and cultural capital— to generate positive change. With a focus on community outcomes, the authors illustrate how development controlled by community-based organizations provides a better match between assets and the needs of the community.
Author: Gary Paul Green
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1439900876
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
As communities face new social and economic challenges as well as political changes, the responsibilities for social services, housing needs, and welfare programs are being placed at the local government level. But can community-based organizations address these concerns effectively? The editors and contributors to Mobilizing Communities explore how these organizations are responding to these challenges, and how asset-based development efforts can be successful.
Author: Robert E. Friedman
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620974045
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
A guide to making the U.S. economy work for everyone, by a leading advocate of asset development The majority of Americans do not have a few thousand dollars to weather an unexpected illness, job loss, or accident. Most Americans, including 80 percent of people of color, are locked out of the mainstream economy, unable to add their talents, work, and dreams, unable to share in the bounty of this economy. Without a nest egg most Americans cannot invest in their future—and the future of our country—through saving, entrepreneurship, education, and homeownership. We can—and we should—do better. Longtime leader in the field of asset-building Robert E. Friedman demonstrates how a few simple policy changes would address wealth inequality—and build a better economy and a stronger country for us all. In six sharp, compelling chapters, accented by sixteen original black-and-white illustrations by Rohan Eason that present the realities of income and asset inequality and explain the needed policy interventions, Friedman addresses savings, business, education, home, and prosperity to articulate a vision for making inclusive investments without spending an additional dollar, just by transforming tax subsidies for the wealthy few into seeds for prosperity for everyone. This is an investment with a huge return: the redemption of the American promise of prosperity for all.
