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Mission

The Financial Clinic is a nonprofit financial service, law and policy clinic whose mission is to improve economic security for working poor and low-income people by literally and explicitly helping families make ends meet.

Programs

The Clinic addresses the gulf between poverty and self-sufficiency through an innovative model that combines financial education, counseling and planning with “low-bono” legal services targeting personal financial issues. The Clinic’s financial education and counseling services not only helps overcome barriers related to low financial literacy, but also focuses families on financial goals through results-oriented action plans. All our financial development work focuses on five parameters of a working poor family’s “financial health”: presence of safety nets; work towards financial goals; use of fringe financial services; payment of debt; and knowledge of credit reports and scores. By helping to close the self-sufficiency gap, the Clinic helps low income people achieve economic security.

Goals

The Clinic's ultimate goal is to accomplish systemic change. We are currently working on several projects with this objective, most notably our "Cash Earners" project. The NYS Department of Taxation is increasingly asking low-income tax filers with cash income—primarily child care providers and house cleaners—-to document their "business income" with "books, records and ledgers," probably due to the rapid growth of low-income families obtaining the Earned Income Tax Credit (EIC). Due to the informal nature of the cash-earning work—relatives caring for children they know or neighbors cleaning homes—most do not keep "business records." Throughout the tax season, the Clinic has been working with these cash-earning tax filers, educating them about the state's stepped up requirements and solicitating their contact information for an organizing effort in the post tax season.

Accomplishments

Over the last year the Clinic served over 250 people in a range of financial education and legal services. These advocacy and legal services have allowed us to secure over $35,000 in assets and resources for our clients. Moreover, the Clinic also partners with the Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union to serve over 2,000 tax filers through our free tax preparation program, which will return over $2 million to the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant communities.

Program Evaluation Methods

The Clinic is current working to create an the information-gathering and data system that will demonstrate what it actually means to provide financial development work; document how well the Clinic is doing it; and establish whether the Clinic is achieving its goals. Given the dynamic nature and individualistic definition of “economic security,” it is critical that the Clinic captures exactly what it means to help low-income families make ends meet.

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