With great thanks to the folks at the Income Security Advocacy Centre for putting this together, and to CLEO for making the content available. Ontario has recently undertaken a broadly-focused review of its social assistance (welfare) system. These webinars were done to help people understand what was happening, and present a few ideas for ways … Continue reading »
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Social Enterprise: Childcare – you’d think it can’t fail, but…
Several years ago when I was working on developing a social enterprise around bedbug removal, I did a lot of research. One of the best articles I read, and one to this day that I still think about, was “The Limits of Social Enterprise: A Field Study & Case Analysis”, put out by the SeedCo Policy Center in June … Continue reading »
Five things business can learn from non-profits
A small bit of bragging: I recently found out that my entry was selected as a winner of the Maytree Foundation’s “Five Good Ideas” contest. The request was for non-profit staff to offer suggestions to business leaders. I suggested that the private sector not expect that people will be necessarily attracted to high salaries if the work … Continue reading »
Bankruptcy Blog
I’ve recently found a fantasic and very active blog that focuses on bankruptcy and consumer credit, called Credit Slips. It specifies that it’s mostly run by academics, though there’s clearly a lot of links to other public resources. I’m not sure how many non-profit people are reading it, but I’ll definitely plan to start sifting … Continue reading »
Credit Counselling: what it is and what it isn’t
I’ve been meaning for a long time to write a bit about credit counselling. I think it’s often seen as a cure-all for people wanting to address their debts but afraid of bankruptcy. Alternatively, going to credit counselling is sometimes painted as “just as bad” as filing for bankruptcy. Realistically, I think credit counselling is … Continue reading »
Park Lake family buys a brand new home
This is an article I did for The Voice, the newspaper of Seattle social service agency Neighborhood House. The article tells the story of the Nguyen family, who were able to buy a home with the help of the Homeownership Program at the International District Housing Alliance (IDHA), where I was their counselor. The story … Continue reading »
Don’t Freak Out About Your Credit Score
Credit scores are a useful tool, and certainly have an important role to play in the granting and pricing of loans and credit. But sometimes, getting new credit isn’t really the goal. For people whose primary objective, at least in the short-term, is to pay down debt or even just to get through the month … Continue reading »
Taxonomy of Low-Income People and Finance
I recently spoke at an Osgoode Hall LLM course on Banking and Law, talking about how low-income people interact with banks. This was my own observations, not presenting research or hard data. (For those interested, some research has looked at low-income people’s access to bank accounts, a measure on which Canada scores remarkably high. An overview … Continue reading »
Financial literacy leads to financial independence to newcomers
Here’s an article I did for the Toronto Star featuring the financial literacy services at WoodGreen, both what I teach and the classes in the Immigrant Services Unit. Thanks to my three clients, Samatha, Soledad, and Hazel, for joining me in the photograph! Back in Mumbai where she came from, Hazel D’Souza did most financial … Continue reading »
Predatory Lenders Target New Asian Immigrants
From an interview I did with the Seattle’s International Examiner, along with my colleague Sophorn Sim. Predatory Lenders Target New Asian Immigrants International Examiner, News Report, Nhien Nguyen, Posted: Apr 26, 2006 Seattle – When Sophorn Sim bought her first home in 1993, she never imagined that the American dream could turn into a … Continue reading »