Family Life Center offers workshops on avoiding debt, investing and more
The Family Life Center, a HUD-sponsored (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) housing center, offers free counseling sessions and workshops on everything from budgeting to investing to buying a house.
“We educate [people] and let them know what their options are. We don’t tell them what to do,” said Director of Family Life Center Housing and Financial Counseling Tawnee McCay. “Ours is a preventative approach. We try to prevent unnecessary debt and give people objective information that will allow them to make informed choices.”
The Family Life Center, located at the bottom of Old Main Hill, holds a wide variety of annual workshops.
A home ownership workshop is held for first-time buyers, McCay said. This workshop provides an education certificate necessary for some loans and allows participants to apply for $1,600 assistance for closing costs on a home, she said. This workshop is also offered in Spanish.
Financial planning for women, held the second Wednesday of each month, covers various financial topics from retirement to social security to IRAs and self-employment.
“We also have a financial checkup class,” said Andria Hansen, assistant director of Family Life Center Housing and Financial Counseling. “It’s an overall assessment of [one’s] financial situation.”
The annual stretching your dollar workshop is fun, Hansen said.
“We get prizes from people throughout the community,” she said.
This class provides new ideas for reducing living expenses.
The Housing and Financial Counseling department couples with the Marriage and Family Therapy department to teach the engaged and newly-married couples workshop, McCay said. Housing and Financial Counseling teaches the importance of financial wellness, budgeting and savings, while Marriage and Family Therapy stresses the necessity of good communication in marriage, which includes communicating about and delegating financial responsibilities and considering future financial needs, she said.
McCay said HFC encourages individuals to come in for help with budgeting money and getting out of debt. This can be done fairly quickly with an HFC program called Power Pay, which customizes a monthly budget to fit individuals’ needs, she said.
“I think it is important, especially for Utahns, to be more careful with their finances,” McCay said.
Utah ranks No. 2 in the nation for bankruptcy filings per adult, McCay said. In addition to the high bankruptcy number, the Wall Street Journal said U.S. savings rates have hit an all-time low. In July 2000, Wall Street reported the Commerce Department as saying the savings rate was negative 0.2 percent, the lowest the Commerce Department has seen since it began keeping track in 1959.
This means spending is increasing twice as fast as income, McCay said.
“We teach that there are only three things it is OK to go into debt for: a house, a car and an education,” McCay said. “We stress the importance of living within your means.”
Credit cards are not the answer, she said.
Housing and Financial Counseling also teaches workshops at Soar and Survival each year to incoming freshmen.
The Family Life Center Housing and Financial Counseling also offers these free workshops to individuals and community and religious groups, McCay said. For more information on classes or to schedule a personal or group workshop, the Family Life Center Housing and Financial Counseling can be contacted at 435-797-7224. They are located at 493 N 700 East.