As originally published by Texas Border Business newsprint edition January 2018
The wellbeing of the people in the Rio Grande Valley can be affected by many factors, for example, direct health issues but it can also be affected by stress. Being under financial stress can affect the health and well-being of an individual. Loan payments that are too high to pay can bring financial stress, this is why the Community Loan Center (CLC) is a tremendous benefit to employees.
“The Community Loan Center is one of our products,” Melissa Landin, public relations and marketing coordinator for the Community Development Corporation of Brownsville (CDCB), said. “Our loan program itself has been so popular and so beneficial that it received a national award by Wells Fargo and we’ve actually franchised it out to other organizations throughout the nation.”
“Unfortunately, here in the Valley, we are plagued with predatory lending. For example, if you take a $1000 loan now through a payday loan company you could pay tremendous amounts of fees by the time that you can pay them back.” Landin said. “And what we found with some of our clients, is that some people will take another payday loan to pay off the previous payday loan, so they end up in this vicious cycle.”
The CLC, established in 2011 by the RGV MultiBank (RGVMB) to offer low-interest, low-fee personal loans, it’s part of the CDCB, but although located in Brownsville it serves the whole Rio Grande Valley, and the loan program is available nationwide.
“In the Valley, the average family doesn’t have enough money saved to last for three months, that’s a very startling statistic, and that’s something that we are trying to correct. Our research also shows that children under the age of five are highly affected by financial stress that they see their family facing. Even though finances are directly managed by their parents, children see that too, and it highly affects their productivity in school,” said Landin.
The Community Loan Center is a benefit that employers can offer to their employees. It’s a small-dollar loan, up to a thousand dollars and they have 12 months to pay it back through a direct payroll deduction. For a thousand dollars loan the fee is only $120. This will help employees be more efficient in their jobs because financial stress will be relieved from them.
“In our research, we found that work productivity can be affected by financial stress at home. So, this is a good service to provide to employees in order to increase their productivity and to be stress-free.” Landin explained. “One of the products that we offer is financial wellness and financial coaching. We help individuals to budget, fix their credit, and things of that sort to make them financially well.”
“We had a two-day RGV committee, in Brownsville, we had people come in from financial institutions and organizations from across the nation, everyone shared solutions on how to combat poverty, and a big part of that was financial wellness and helping families to budget their money.”
The CLC is only one product of the CDCB. They also do single family and multi-family housing, they are the largest nonprofit single housing organization in the state. Youth Build is a free community program which helps at-risk youth ages 17 and 24 obtain their GED and receive certified training. They also have a financial wellness program and housing counseling. They manage funding from different municipalities and organizations to provide these benefits to the Valley community.
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