Financial Empowerment Begins Here
A financially empowered person is both informed and skilled. They track their spending and savings, manage their credit and debt, and connect with safe and affordable banking services.
Muneer Karcher-Ramos (he/him/el) leads the City of Saint Paul’s Office of Financial Empowerment and specializes in community- and culturally-valued approaches. He is also the co-founder of the cradle-to-career Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood.
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The ability to make informed choices about money is a key component of financial empowerment. Research suggests that people who feel empowered by their finances are more satisfied with their lives than those who don’t – even at lower income levels. The City of Saint Paul offers clear, comprehensive, and unbiased personal finance resources to support residents in any stage of life.
Adding financial counseling as a core component of other social services programs, such as housing and workforce development, creates a “supervitamin effect” by strengthening the efficacy of those programs, boosting their outcomes, and expanding the benefits for participants. Jackson’s Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) offers professional, low-cost, and personalized one-on-one financial counseling to any resident (18 years or older) of the City of Jackson or West Tennessee, with no income or program requirements. Services include budgeting, increasing savings, maximizing cash flow, building credit, managing debt, and connecting with safe and affordable banking services.
In 2019, Saint Paul launched a new model to help residents get the support they need to meet their financial goals, called the People’s Prosperity Pilot. The pilot supports the work of community partners by funding wraparound financial empowerment services for individuals receiving assistance with housing, child care, and other needs, in addition to providing direct assistance with mortgages and other loans.
Muneer Karcher-Ramos (he/him/his) is the inaugural director of the City of Saint Paul’s Office of Financial Empowerment. He works with communities that have historically experienced structural, systemic, and public disinvestment that has rendered them invisible in the city. His approach emphasizes community- and culturally-valued approaches to building assets and improving financial well-being.
In this video, Muneer shares the vision for OFE and what it means to be financially empowered in Saint Paul. The City of Saint Paul’s goal is to ensure that all residents can live in secure, stable, and thriving neighborhoods, with good jobs, affordable homes, and quality education for their children. We need your help to achieve that goal. Together, we can build a city where everyone belongs. Please support our efforts to help Saint Paul families thrive by giving a gift today.