New Financial Center Signals Change in Southwest Baltimore
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| Althea Saunders-Ranniar is the asset-building coordinator at the Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation. |
BALTIMORE - It's a slip of a space, sandwiched between a video store and a dollar store in the Westside Shopping Center.
But with its friendly name "Our Money Place" emblazoned in green and white, it is Southwest Baltimore’s freshest symbol of hope for transforming the embattled neighborhood into a desirable place to live, work and play.
Our Money Place uniquely combines a check-cashing operation with a credit union. It represents the type of activity that is part of a broad, inclusive approach developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to help families build stability and hope for the future. The approach, called Family Economic Success (FES), relies on neighborhood residents, churches, schools, businesses, government and others to connect to a range of resources, investments and strategies to affect positive, permanent change in communities.
Our Money Place returns a financial center to Southwest Baltimore five years after the last bank pulled out. Residents again have access to the services they need to save money, buy houses and build other assets in their community.
"It's a continuing struggle to move aside what has devastated this community for so long," says Althea E. Saunders-Ranniar, asset-building coordinator with the Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation. "Programs like this that are coming in here are definitely making a change. And finances are at the heart of it."
Significant as it is, Our Money Place is but one piece of an ambitious community effort to shore up Southwest Baltimore's long-term health. The Working Families Initiative seeks to enhance the quality of life in the neighborhood by helping residents to improve their financial planning and make the most of their job skills and careers.
“What they’re doing is extremely innovative,” says Irene Skricki, program associate with the Casey Foundation, which is helping to fund Our Money Place and other projects of the Working Families Initiative. “Policymakers around the nation are searching for ways to revitalize urban centers, but few have shown a clear idea of how to proceed. This partnership in Southwest Baltimore is different, and holds great promise.”
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