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Those involved with the community programming shared their stories with U.S. Rep. Richard Neal on Monday.

Greylock Shows Neal Results of Grant for Underserved Clients

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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Neal met with board members and senior leadership on Monday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — In October, a man walked into Greylock Federal Credit Union with little cash in his account and little credit.

He also didn't have heat.

He hadn't paid his gas bill for some time and the utility company shut it off. He didn't have enough credit to get a loan elsewhere to catch up and the winter was coming. 
 
Vice President of Community Development Cindy Shogry-Raimer got him the loan he needed at lower interest rate than if he put it on a credit card.
 
And she got him into a budget program. She set him up with a financial coach to help develop a spending plan moving forward. And now, he not only has a warm home, but also a stronger financial footing than ever before.
 
Another woman had lived in the same apartment for 10 years when her daughter got pregnant. She had a similar track record with cash and credit, so money was tight. Her daughter planned to move in.
 
"When she mentioned to her landlord that her pregnant daughter was moving in, she suddenly got an eviction notice. That's not a surprise. It does happen. But when you are not prepared for that and you are shelling out all of this money to help your grandchild, she needed money to get into a brand new apartment and get a tank of oil," Shogry-Raimer said.
 
Again, Greylock worked with her to get on a better financial footing. Another woman had only been on a job for six months when her grandmother died in Florida. There was no way she could get there without a loan, but no other institution would take a chance on her. Greylock got her a short-term loan to go to the funeral.
 
"It just pulled all of the stress off of her. She was able to get closure. We were able to help her when nobody else would actually take a chance on her," Shogry-Raimer said.
 
Community Development Specialist Gloria Escobar worked with a man who was paying 20 percent on debt through a credit card and got him into a lower interest loan and back on the right track, saving the customer $8,400. She also had a woman who didn't speak English and she stepped in to work with the collection agency to halt that, and then worked with the woman to connect her with a financial coach. 
 
"She wasn't able to talk with the collection department because of a language barrier. I got them to stop the repossession, waive the fees, and she was able to keep her car to get to work," Escobar said.
 
These are stories Greylock leaders told U.S. Rep. Richard Neal on Monday. And those stories wouldn't be possible without a $686,000 grant Neal was able to secure for the credit union. 
 
That grant is responsible for the creation of the community-based programming at Greylock, which is comprised of safety net loans, loans for vehicles, and small business loans. It also includes financial wellness coaching, teaching financial literacy in schools, and helping connect the underserved population with other health and human service agencies.
 
"Our average household income is less than $50,000. One in five families that have children under the age of 5 are living in poverty. And 43 percent of consumers in Massachusetts have subprime credit," Chief Lending Officer Jodi Rathbun-Briggs said. 
 
"That is substantial. If you put that with somebody who is making $50,000 a year and they already have credit trouble, what happens is when they have an emergency and they are seeking a loan, many times they don't have the ability to. Also, they don't have the ability to pay the high rates they would need to be approved for this loan."
 
Rathbun-Briggs said 90 percent of the Berkshire population depends on private transportation. The new roads program is aimed to help people avoid predatory lenders when buying vehicles. 
 
"It is not only giving them access to the car, we're giving them access to the car at an affordable rate," Rathbun-Briggs said.
 
The program has ultimately created $8 million worth of loans, she said. It also has a built-in component where someone with poor credit can have their interest rate on those loans decrease over time if the monthly bills are all paid on time.
 
And it helps employers who have been reporting that sometime transportation is what keeps them from retaining some of their best employees.
 
"Those employers have told us that they have trouble retaining their employees. People are struggling with financial insecurity, it is troublesome for them to keep coming to work, stay focused, and not be distracted. Since they have to rely on their own transportation to get back and forth, if something happens to their car, all of a sudden they aren't at work and there is a high absentee rate," Rathbun-Briggs said.
 
She said the institution was able to lend out some $750,000 in safety net loans. She said that can be at rates of 7.99 percent for people who may otherwise be borrowing on a credit card upward of 20 percent. 
 
"We have all heard that Americans have trouble coming up with more than $400 for an emergency. If you have a 550 credit score, your options are very limited to help do that. That is where a number of consumers turn to pay day lenders who often charge exorbitant rates," Rathbun-Briggs said.
 
That program, too, is coupled with lining the customer up with a financial coach to work on bettering their credit score and developing a solid spending plan.
 
"It is not just giving people the money that they need. It is helping them make better decisions," Rathbun-Briggs said.
 
And lastly, the credit union will loan out to start up small businesses. Rathbun-Briggs said that program is intended to help somebody start up a new business.
 
For Neal, the financial literacy piece is the most important piece of the grant. He said there has been a shift in behaviors in personal spending over the years, driven by an outburst of lending that ultimately led to the financial recession a decade ago. 
 
"There was all this money being pushed out the door and the idea was at the end of each month or each quarter fill some standard of how many loans you got out. And then everybody feigned surprise when the loans weren't being paid back," Neal said.
 
More and more, Neal says more and people are not equipped with the right knowledge and are finding themselves with significant credit card debt. With high interest rates on those cards, he said many are just "digging the hole deeper."
 
"I would be happy to help [Greylock] again," Neal said.
 
"For the individual who has a poor credit score and is paying 21 or 22 percent on a credit card, when the car breaks down there isn't a lot of room in the budget. When the babysitter cancels, there isn't a lot of room. With a national minimum wage rate at $7.25, that means you work a day in some places to fill the gas tank. You don't have a lot of room for error so I think what they are doing is well noted."
 
Neal hopes to expand financial literacy classes to the younger ages.
 
Rathbun-Briggs said the organization was able to get into the classrooms and teach such things as building credit and budgeting because of the grant. She said 5,700 students were given lessons in personal finance through the grant.
 
Neal added that understanding and being involved with the banking industry is even more important moving forward as more and more people are becoming fully responsible for their retirements.
 
"You are going to be in charge of your own retirement. There is not going to be the benefit of the private sector," Neal said.
 
Greylock CEO John Bissell said he appreciates the support from Neal because without that grant, he doesn't believe the organization would have the confidence to make these types of loans available to those who need it.

Tags: federal grants,   Greylock Federal,   Neal,   

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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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