Hello Alameda. Welcome to the Island City Beat Podcast. I'm your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem Growing up, most of us perceived very little, if any, education regarding money, how how money works, how to save it, how to use tools to help build wealth.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, today I'm talking to two members of an organization called MyPath, which aims to change that narrative. MyPath works with young people aged 15 to 24, empowering them with financial literacy and setting them up on a path toward economic prosperity and well-being. And with that, let me introduce you to my two guests. I have with me today Alexandria Downing and Angely Miranda. Alexandria is the senior manager and oversees the financial mentoring program at MyPath.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:She's also a certified financial fitness coach and a financial social worker coach. Angely is the director of the Student Loan Empowerment Program, and she has more than twenty years experience advocating for youth development and helping young people live their fullest potential. So with that, let me say hello to Alexandria and Angely. Welcome to the Island City Beat podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Angely Miranda:Hi, thank you for having us.
Alexandria Downing:Hi, thank you.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So I am so excited to have this conversation with you about money. I don't think we, as Americans, our culture talks enough about money, about education, financial literacy, empowerment. I just don't think that we do enough serious talk about this, especially when it comes to working with our young people. So I'm very excited to have you guys to talk to you about this topic this day. But before we go into the meat of our conversation, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about MyPath, about your organization, how it got started, and why you do the work that you do.
Alexandria Downing:Perfect. So I'll take that. So who is myPath?
Alexandria Downing:So I'll start here. MyPath is a San Francisco based nonprofit focused on powering youth potential and seeding economic mobility. So it was launched in 02/2007. We were established as a nonprofit affiliate of a long standing community development credit union serving low income predominantly Lat ino immigrant neighborhoods. Designing financial services and program models with and for low income consumers in our, is in our DNA.
Alexandria Downing:So our effectiveness is rooted in our history, our strategic partnerships, and a design process that incorporates youth voices, human relationships, technology and commitment to evaluating our impact. So our main focus as far as young people who we target is 16 to 24, who are participating in the workforce. So many, many of them come from low income households, where they grow up in a financial desert or communities without ready access to quality banking and financial services. So when banking access and financial tools are scarce, we know that our young people too often lose their hard earned income to predatory financial services and end up on almost like a dead end financial path. So what's more four and five low income young adults have credit issues, shutting them off from pathways to employment, housing and quality loans.
Alexandria Downing:So without tools to save and borrow, it's close to impossible for them to just really leverage economic opportunity and achieve their financial goals. So we partner with many organizations, we partner in different counties as well. And our vision is to really service any low income young person or young adult and give them provide them with the opportunity and the chance to really focus on their first paycheck and know that it's not just about the income but lasting economic security. And we also are really big on building a strong foundation for upward economic mobility by connecting low income working youth with opportunities to bank and build savings, credit and financial confidence.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Awesome. That's wonderful. So take us through the process. When a young person reaches out to MyPath, they want to take advantage of your wonderful services. What happens?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:What are the steps that you them through? What is the curriculum that you teach them? What can expect to gain from being part of my path?
Angely Miranda:And I could take this one, and I want to say that one of the programs that we can speak to is the Advocates for a New Era program, which is pretty much here. It's funded through DCYF and it's a program geared for high school students, so who live and go to school in San Francisco. And what we do is we teach them financial capability. And financial capability is different from financial education or financial literacy. So think about financial capability, as financial education, plus access to financial products, plus developing healthy financial habits.
Angely Miranda:So a young person, we recruit in San Francisco to all schools, we're on our website and whatnot, and we talk about our program and what we provide. So when we provide financial capability, we actually let them know that they are going to have a non custodial bank account, and they will be having a debit card, they'll have their own checking and savings account, so this is the access to financial products. And then we will teach them how to manage their money, how to budget, talk about their needs versus wants, so to speak. Right? And so again, FinCap is them having the education plus access to financial products.
Angely Miranda:And we teach them how to budget, which is a healthy financial habit, right? We teach them how to do a savings goal. If they want to save $100 or maybe $1,000 by the end of the program year, they'll be able to do that. So that's part of what we do. The other piece is that they get to run a campaign that they all, you know, work on together.
Angely Miranda:And that campaign could be anything from providing financial education to all students in San Francisco. Or maybe it's, I don't know, like advocating for young people to be represented in the decision making process, right, for our local governments or for a decision that they know is going to impact them. So that's what our program is about. So our young people, you know, hear about us and I think it's the financial capability piece that they're really interested in because they do want to, one, they get paid through us, right? So they do want to get paid.
Angely Miranda:They also do get to learn about money, and it's beyond that. It's beyond just, I'm making money and I can put it in the bank. It's about the financial capability piece.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So you actually if I get this right, you actually take the young person and you you help them open up a savings account. You help them get a debit card. You actually do so. Wow. So for me, this is like a whole new life.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Why I got a credit card?
Angely Miranda:Yes yeah and so our Advocates for a New Era program is specifically to San Francisco for San Francisco youth.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So let's talk a little bit about those credit cards, I know credit cards can get a lot of people in trouble, both young and old. What do you tell your students about credit, about how to use credit wisely, how to use credit to build a credit portfolio that is positive, that will help you get a good loan one day when you want to buy a house or get a car. Really love to hear more about the credit history, the credit work that you do with your students.
Alexandria Downing:I don't mind taking oh, go ahead, Angely.
Angely Miranda:Oh, no, I was just gonna say that with the young people, when they're in the Advocates New Year program, we do teach them about the basics, super basics, like what is a credit card? What does it mean to have a credit card? What is the APR interest? You know, we like from A to Z, they get informed about it. We also talk about what it means to be making the minimum.
Angely Miranda:So a lot of it is in theory, right? They don't have a credit card yet because they need to be of age to get one. But they do learn the basics of it and the importance of staying on top of the payments. And then Alex.
Alexandria Downing:Yeah, so you were able to get a glimpse of the age range that Angely was really walking us through. Now with me and the program that I work, that I'm managing with financial mentors, young people 18 to 24 will receive an actual financial mentor or coach as we call them mentors. So when we're talking about credit, to add on to what Angie was saying, these young people actually have the line of credit now, either they're building it, establishing it, correcting it, maintaining it, so we in the program that I'm managing, we get a whole roll up of everyone and I think what I like about the age range that I'm sharing with you as far as the program goes, they're coming in still open to learning the foundations of credit. You can never have enough. It's scary, it's money that's not yours, and you have to be responsible enough for it to help you out in the long run to gain access to bigger and better things beyond yourself to really plant your feet financially.
Alexandria Downing:So I think it goes back to the foundations like Angely was talking about earlier on just establishing the concept and understanding this money is not yours. Let's start there. This does not belong to you, so we know it doesn't belong to you, what in your life can you apply as a situation, maybe you're borrowing something from your sister or maybe you're borrowing something from your friend, the borrowing concept and the borrowing idea doesn't change. So in reality you do have knowledge already, we're just building off of it, now we're using the tool money to really like a hammer either you're going to build and bust walls out or I'm sorry either you're gonna build or bust walls out either you're gonna cause debt or build create financial growth it's the same thing. So what I really like that MyPath does in the various age groups that we work with and the various services that we provide when when we're talking about credit with young people is that they already have the knowledge, we're just pulling it out of them.
Alexandria Downing:We're strengthening the confidence, the confidence that you can go into a banking institution and if you lose your debit card you know what to say to customer service. You know the confidence where I know how to sit on my hands and not splurge and go Yes. Go shopping all the time or you know let's go eat get DoorDash order, it's easy to press, it's easy to press the button to just or swipe that's easy. So how do we, what I love about the MyPath services and again we're just talking about credit, there's so many other topics that we touch on but what I really love about the information that we're able to provide is we catch the young person before they swipe.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Alexandria Downing:It's like, oh you gotta be we talked about the behavior before you did that, what's going on? We talked about money habits, we talked about your money habi tude, we talked about your the behavior, you know, that you've learned over maybe your sister did it or your grandma did it, we learned we talked about that. Yeah. So it's that impulse that you know that reaction of oh my this is gonna be so much fun, but what I love about MyPath is the fact that we provide those interjections, little points of pause and think, this is not your money, it's not your money, think about your future, you have a goal.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So it sounds like you guys weren't, you just aren't just teaching about goals and how to use a credit card, but also about being responsible too. Because you see all this stuff, oh, Amazon. Oh, this is right here. I'm gonna find this. And a lot of people, you hear about a lot of college kids, they go off to college, their mom and dad gives them a credit card, and they end up with $20,000 worth of debt on credit because they've splurged.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So that's awful. So I'm glad that piece of responsibility is part of what you guys are teaching our young people as well. Yeah. Let's talk about savings, because I know that's really important. And we, country, as our American fellow human beings aren't very good with savings.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:In fact, I remember reading something recently where something like very only small percentage of people could afford a $400 emergency bill that came to them. So there's no sense of saving for a rainy day. And so I would love to hear you talk about what you're teaching your young students around the importance of saving.
Angely Miranda:Yeah, and I could take on that, because part of the curriculum is also having them to develop a savings goal. Now the savings goal is something that they decide to do they decide, they decide how much money they want to save. But then we tie it to something that they want. So if we have seniors or even juniors in our in the cohort, they'll say, Oh, I want to save for college applications, or I want to save for college in general, right? And then you have others who say, Well, you know, I got my driver's license, so I want to save for a car, a used car.
Angely Miranda:So it's tying the savings goal to something that they want and that they can actually get. So we have SMART goals, right? That we teach them about.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So what's it called?
Angely Miranda:SMART goals, S M Yeah. A R It's specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, what's the Timing. So by the end of the year, I am going to save this much money, and this is how I'm going to do it. I'll put I'll, we'll give them split direct deposit, again, part of the education and also access is like, we'll ask them how much of your check do you want to go into your savings and into your checking, and we want to make sure that the amount of savings is going to meet your savings goal. And so we you know, so they the whole year, this is how they do it.
Angely Miranda:And when they achieve that goal, when they save that money, regardless of how much they put, there's a sense of pride that they display, right? I'm so proud of myself. I was able to save that money, leave it in the savings account. I got some money for my birthday, and I was able to put it in there because I wanted that to grow. And when they have that, when they see that they are able to attain like a $500 right savings goal, oh my god, I got $500 What are you gonna do with it?
Angely Miranda:Nothing, it's gonna stay in there, and hopefully it'll grow. And they don't wanna touch it. They don't wanna spend it. And some of them, they actually do. I had to go in there because my family needed some extra food.
Angely Miranda:So I was able to take it out and they gave it to them, but I put it back once I was able to replenish my savings account. So you see the growth, you see the understanding and the importance of having that savings. And what I notice with a lot of our students is not just the sense of pride, but also confidence. Like, I could do this. Yeah.
Angely Miranda:And I could make that $500 double by the end of next year, or within six months, right? And they see that if I have money saved up, I don't have to worry if an emergency happens. I have that money there. You know, if I, you know, I see that, oh, I was able to actually use the money in my checking account to apply for my college applications, I don't need to touch my savings because I had the money there. And when you see those things, you see it click, and you see their confidence grow.
Angely Miranda:And you see them understand the importance of saving. And also how parents also, you know, rely on the students like, can I can I get some because we need some? Yeah, sure. Here you go. Okay, I'll pay you back. Right?
Angely Miranda:And then it they also encourage parents to talk about money. Parents are learning from our youth, from our students, about saving money, about how a debit card works, about, you know, in general just like they like to teach their parents and their siblings, so you see that as well.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That is powerful.
Alexandria Downing:I want to add to that just to provide an example of everything that Angely was saying. I want to add that our young people are not just our young people in my path, but just young people in general. They are, they're very resourceful and they know, they know where to go to get some information. It may not be the best information, but they know where to go to get some information that can lead to other information.
Alexandria Downing:So the confidence that Angely was talking about the beat, almost the behavior change. I met a young lady during enrollment and she came in with and this is a good example, I love telling this story because it was shocking to me. She came to the enrollment, older young she was brought I believe she's in her 20s because remember mentoring works with a older group. But this is about the resourcefulness that I want to lean into. And she came with her a purse, like nine in the morning with a purse and money was just pouring out of this purse, like she couldn't close it.
Alexandria Downing:And I had, I think we were in Oakland at that time doing an enrollment and I asked her, I said are you walking around Oakland with a purse like that, money just spewing out of the bag and she said you know, oh, I'm she's like, oh, know. I know it looks bad, but I'm gonna head over to the bank right after this. So I'm gonna deposit it. And I had said to her, I said, all that cash, like, what I was more shocked as to why it was cash and she said, oh, I do some, you know, side jobs and things like that and they end up paying in cash, but I do these things called savings challenges and this is my third one and every year I do a savings challenge and and I end up meeting it and so next year I'm about to top it off, I'm about to be in the thousands I already know. She was telling me it was it was it turned into her story now,
Alexandria Downing:Not me asking oh what's going on are you saving? No it's just I'm in root, I'm already in the in the mindset of saving because I did it once and I saw what it felt like like that confidence Angie was talking about, it does something to you. Yeah. It does something within you and it sparks the I can attitude. So I love the fact that our curriculum, you could see it, you could see the progress, you could see the growth, you can see the milestones that you're that you are that you have with a person or with a mentor, my path suddenly becomes the re the not the is the reassurance I want to use or the reaffirm, we reaffirm that you are working on your financial journey.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Alexandria Downing:We are those people whatever program, whether you're young, whether you're 18 to 24, it doesn't matter, You have found a group of people that want to reaffirm you that you are working in a positive direction towards your own financial journey, however you want to define that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I love that, I love you know helping young people develop those healthy money habits. This young person, she's going to take all this money to the bank.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Now she's going to go shopping at the local mall. She's putting it in a bank. Let me ask you a question. When a young person has a job, they have money, they want to save it. What are the best ways to funnel that money?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Do you happen to go to like the traditional bank or credit unions? Where's the best place to put that savings?
Alexandria Downing:I know first we go back to that that first paycheck, that feeling of that first paycheck. MyPath does a really good job, of coaching young people into the idea of when you get that first paycheck, they've already learned about split deposit, they have already learned about it before they even got the paycheck some of them.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Now what's split deposit? What is that?
Alexandria Downing:The deposit meaning putting a certain percentage in your checking to use for your wants Uh-huh. And then putting some money over into your savings as far as your needs. So there's, you know, they're they determine what that percentage looks like based off of their income that what feels comfortable and sometimes they want to put a little bit more on the savings after they've gotten the hang of it, but it's letting them know that this opportunity is available to you even when you get your first paycheck, you don't have to wait until you're in your 30s, your 40 or late 20s, you can start saving now. Guess what, by way of split deposit. So credit unions and traditional or credit unions or banks, we normally because we're working with such a young population of people and we want to make sure that they don't acquire fees or anything that can deter them from be having the little bit of money they have become less, we really try to focus on finding the establishment that will provide them with that opportunity and it's most likely a credit union, a local credit union with the low to no fees, they're a little bit more they were their understanding of the community needs, it's not to say that the other banks are bad, but it's to say where can I get the most bang for my buck as a young person?
Alexandria Downing:Yeah. I think I can get it more at a credit union because they understand the community I'm from, I probably got a job that's local in my community most likely and they'll work with me and it's low to no fees. Why? Because we know that young people are still building that confidence and still building those financial habits, bound for some errors we know. A little bit of overdraft here, little bit, we know that.
Alexandria Downing:So why not do it in a place that doesn't provide you with, doesn't where you don't accrue a lot of fees. Yeah. I think we might want to take you over to the credit union. So I'll pass it to Angie if have anything to add.
Angely Miranda:No, I mean, I think you said it well. And you know, with our Advocates for New Era program, we do partner with the San Francisco Federal Credit Union, who because of their low fees, fees, and they also provide non custodial accounts, meaning that the youth get their own accounts in their own name, they do not their parents know that they have these accounts, but will not have any access to those accounts. So the young person is like, literally, this is my own checking and savings account. So yeah, and they do get, they're more protected. And, yeah, I feel like credit unions pretty great partner for young people.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:You don't the fees and you can yeah, it's financial like that. I know my son graduated from high school last year. He had some money that he earned or got from people for a graduation gift, and I said, okay, have this money, use a few thousand dollars, okay, we're gonna do something really smart with, we're gonna put it in a high yield savings account, so I did find an online account, you know, and they had like a 4% interest rate. So we put in there. And the other day, said, Kaima, you've made $400 not doing anything.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:This passive income came to you just because you had this money in a high yield savings account. So he was pretty happy about that.
Alexandria Downing:That's good. Yeah. That is exciting.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So outside of the work that you do around savings and building credit, what are some other services that you want to talk about that you offer your young students?
Alexandria Downing:I know that I'd like to talk about the financial mentoring. Think just briefly why I want to talk about it is because I know that it could be you especially for someone turning 18 and up really trying to establish themselves but still in developmental adult in a space of being development of development excuse me and I it's scary talking to an unknown person about your finances. I want to acknowledge that it's scary to do that. Yeah. It's scary because this person you're talking to is going to hold up a mirror to you and reflect back to you all the bad stuff.
Alexandria Downing:So who why would you want to meet with someone to talk about the bad stuff? Oh did you know your credit low your credit score is low? Oh you have a lot of debt, did you know that? Common, very common. So the defense mechanisms can go up.
Alexandria Downing:What I appreciate about financial mentoring is we work with skilled, certified financial coaches of color that are very clear on the participants that they're serving, their needs, and their challenges. So talking about what has happened in your community is probably not going to phase the financial mentors that we're working with because they're very familiar with that. They're familiar with the clientele and the needs of this population. So now you're building trust, the anxiety goes down, the trust goes up and we gotta start there first before we could even start talking about the debts because what comes with the debts is a story. What comes with the debts is is is a revelation, possibly a revelation.
Alexandria Downing:What comes with the debts is possibly even just some trauma. So we have our coaches really skilled up in being clear of what are the possibilities, the topics that could be coming up and how to help shape and guide the young person. We know we like we know this stuff you know this might happen but you'll make it through so there's a blend. This is why we use the word mentoring because it you know there's a there's a trusted adult element. It starts there first.
Alexandria Downing:It's new from the they're new the client is a new client for the mentor too, so it's still a new it's a new engagement. Let me know what works for you. Do you work better at night? Do you work better in the morning? Do you work better in the midday?
Alexandria Downing:How do you work? I want to make sure that I fit into your schedule so that we can make sure that you are able to reach your financial goals because I know you're going to school full time, I know you're working full time and going to school part time, I know you have a baby, I know you're homeless, I know you're struggling, I know you live at home and you're and you're going to school online, I know that all the different things that you're doing but we're going to work together to make way to talk about finances and I that's what I appreciate about financial mentoring and I want to share with the audience that it is different, it is different to mentor someone who is a young adult. It requires a lot of nuance, it requires empathy, it requires trauma informed practices, crisis management, it requires a lot because the young person is showing up as their whole self. You're going to get all of it.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah, and I think it's really important too, like you're saying, you know, building that trust. I think for a lot of people there's a lot of shame around money if you have debt, if you don't have enough money, if you have the low credit. And sitting down with someone who's not going to judge you, who's like, hey, I know your path. I have empathy for your path. I've been there even myself.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So I think that's great, yeah, that you have people there who can really identify with the young people that you serve. That's great. I want talk a little bit about college. And what would your advice be to that 16 year old, 17 year old who really wants to go to college, but their family doesn't have a lot of money, and there's been no savings for college? What would your advice be in just helping that young person get prepared for stepping into college, and the expensive college.
Angely Miranda:Oh, yeah. So a lot of what we also teach is around student loans. One of the things that we do with our high school students, we pretty much talk about paying for a college education. How do you prepare for paying that college education? So we talk about the FAFSA, applying for financial aid, perhaps looking at scholarships, right?
Angely Miranda:Really informing yourself of what kind of financial aid is available for you at the federal level. But then also in the private sector, right? What what is the school going to be able to get you? Right now student loans is pretty huge. And I know that student loan debt is that there's definitely a lot going on, right.
Angely Miranda:And so myPath is actually part of the Student Loan Empowerment Network. And the Student Loan Empowerment Network is a network of 14 nonprofit organizations and we partner with the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. So the DFPI, and we provide free and individualized education case management and assistance with student loan issues for Californians. So this program is specific for anyone, any borrower in the state of California. When they're young, we talk about preparing, and then once they're out of college, then we talk about like this debt management, right.
Angely Miranda:And so the network's mission is really to help California student loan borrowers navigate the complex student loan repayment system that's ever changing, right? And we really want them to build a prosperous future. So, you know, the network includes financial counseling and legal aid providers that operate statewide. So we know that we have borrowers who are probably in default right now who might need some advice or legal advice. So we have legal aids that we work with and partner with to help, you know, the borrower kind of get out of debt and, you know, work their way out of default, right?
Angely Miranda:And so we support Californian borrowers who are either struggling with making payments, if they're looking for ways to make repayment easier. Maybe it's considering consolidation or, you know, those who want to go back to school. I have student loan debt and I want to go back to school. What do I do? You know, how do I manage these student loans?
Angely Miranda:And how do I get more student loans to pay for, you know, maybe graduate school and whatnot? And we also have a lot of borrowers who are unsure about the status of older loans. So we help provide that support. And like I mentioned earlier, we do help young people prepare to pay for their college education by really informing them about what's available to them. And now more than ever, I think preparation is going to be a bit more challenging with a lot of the changes that are coming down, right, in the next coming year. And scholarships would be the way to go. But I also know that there's a lot of private, what do you call it, private loans is something that a lot of young people are going to have to turn to. Yeah. If there is a lack of grants and, you know, federal loans for them to actually be able to take on.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah that's in the newspaper about the federal cuts and student financial aid. something our household is looking at, like, oh, college.
Angely Miranda:Yeah. And colleges, it's it got expensive within the last twenty years, you know, I mean, it started out as free. A college education used to be free historically, right? And then they started, of course, charging. And I remember, you know, I might be dating myself, but I remember paying going to a community college and paying like $9 per unit.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Angely Miranda:So it got it got very expensive. So I think a part of the conversation aside from preparing yourself financially is also is college a four year university a traditional college education really something that I should go for? Maybe I want to, you know, do journeyman, right? Maybe there's a skill that I would rather do than go to a four year and there's no shame in any of that. Think, know, anything, I mean, right now, like you can get certified as an electrician, and you can make a lot of money, great money, and open your own business with that, right?
Angely Miranda:And so it's really informing and educating yourself. What are the alternatives to a traditional four year college education? You know, what can I really afford? You know, be realistic here, you know? Because it does feel like the college education is not I feel like everyone has a right to access that.
Angely Miranda:And if that's where they want to go, go for it. But I also feel that there are alternatives that we can look at.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:College isn't for everybody. Yeah, that's like you said. Exactly. Exactly. As we end our conversation, will look for you both to share with me some of the common money myths that your students have and how you dispel those money myths.
Alexandria Downing:I to think about that one.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I mean, like, can't get credit because of this, or I'll never make this amount. I'm sure a lot of people come to you who they're young. They don't have much knowledge at all about money. So they probably come to you with a lot of negativity around money, I imagine, or just fear around money. So I'm just assuming that with your mentoring, your coaching, really it's not going really help people have a healthy relationship with money.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That's what I hear. We were talking to Alexandria about the mentoring. You're taking that person, that young person, and you're helping them dispel that kind of negativity and fear and shame around money and helping them to see money in a way that could help them really have a better life. They can use money in a way that's going to advance what they want to do, advancing their dreams and advancing the things they want to take part on in life when they have good money tools. So I feel like you kind of talked about that already in your mentoring that you do for your students.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah.
Alexandria Downing:I think when it comes to credit and I'm thinking about fears, I'm looking up some things now, it made me think about well where would where would a young person hear first about credit anyway and it's probably in the household. So I'm thinking I just came across one right now of, let me see what is this called a fear, that my family and friends went through life not using credit or having bad credit. So I think I can get by without using credit so you might hear young people up it's just better to not they're 18 maybe that you know they don't even want to get into it. I've actually met adults that don't have credit. I've met adults that don't have credit that were, that are social workers and they don't, they tell their client to not get credit because of the lack of knowledge that they have.
Alexandria Downing:Yeah. But again they can only give the knowledge they can give based off of experience. So the statement here just while some people are able to really live without using credit because it is possible, many people who do use credit feel like it makes their life a lot easier especially when it's used responsibly like you were bringing up the responsibility aspect. For example if you want to buy a car or a house someday, a lot our credit score is made up based off of payment history and length of credit, so why not start at a younger age with something that's more of in the training wheels like a credit builder loan, to then graduate you and you build the strength, you build the responsibility, you build yourself up to know how to pay something back that's not yours, because money is, credit is not yours, support you in the long run, so by the time you're 25 or 30 you have the length of history, again that builds your credit score, you have a credit mix maybe that builds your credit score, payment history that pay that builds your credit score, so it in a way when you learn what being in good standing means you can position yourself with the appropriate products to get you in information to reach that type of status.
Alexandria Downing:So I think what not I think what I know MyPath is doing is getting clients in or young people information so by the time they're in their 30s, credit is not a problem. They've already built, they've already strengthened their muscle on knowing how to pay something back that's not theirs, they already know that that money is not theirs to begin with. So it's about understanding you can use credit and make it work for you or you know if you choose not to use that's great too, but I think that's a fear. Yeah. I don't know if I can but then debunk the fear, why are you scared of it?
Alexandria Downing:Are you scared of it because you don't know, you don't have the necessary tools to protect yourself? It's like building a house like if you don't have the appropriate tools it's gonna blow away probably, but there's strong homes out there right now, there's strong buildings up right now, but by way of knowing that the end goal, I want a big building that means I have to have strong tools and I have to show up.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I know that you're based in San Francisco, so people who may be listening to our podcast and think, oh, I don't live in San Francisco, but they're great. I want to be a part of MyPath. Are there other groups like what MyPath does over in other parts of the Bay Area? Maybe we could put some resources in our show notes for people to access other organizations similar to yours that you wouldn't be able to serve because you're located in a city.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So we'll get that in our show notes. We'll get that from you. But tell us how people can get a hold of you. People want to access your organization, you want to give out your website?
Alexandria Downing:Definitely. The website is I'm making sure I'm saying it right. It says www.mypathus.org And that's where you'll be able to see all of our services, get a really good glimpse of even the partners that we've worked with over the years. I think that'll be a great place to start to learn about the impact that we have made over the years.
Alexandria Downing:Years. We've grown, we've grown, we've been here for a long time, I would say a long time, and we've had a lot of opportunity to start to even strengthen ourselves to figure out where we want to go in the future, and it landed us with really great opportunities to just really expand our knowledge, expand our voice outside of California. So we're national org, so you know though we are based in San Francisco, we've done so much work nationally with our partnerships programs, training other staff outside of California who are working at in workforce organizations how to use our digital platform. So our our us tapping into technology has really granted us the opportunity to really share it with the nation and other organizations and share it with more young people. So that was a really cool tool developed that can that we can train others on how to use it to get their young people on to gain access to the module, the curriculum, how to do a budget, how to you know scheduling meetings with your mentor, it's a one stop shop and that's the ultimate goal.
Alexandria Downing:We know young people can find information, there's TikTok, there's a bunch of avenues, but you know we're really trying to position ourselves to be that, that organization that has the information that has been curated for you young people, this specific population 16 to 24. We know the language, we know you, we now have created curriculum to really, that resonates with you and as they grow, as their knowledge grows, and as the topics grow, we grow. We grow with them.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Well, I tell you guys are wonderful. And I'm so happy that we have organizations like you that empowering our young people around money and being responsible and being prosperous, prosperous is what I'm going say, prosperous in their lives. It's just really great. Thank you, Angely. Thank you, Alexandria, for coming on our show.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:We really appreciate the conversation. I know that you have been able to you have shared a lot of great information for people, and we'll make sure we get some resources out for people who don't live in the city but can also access organizations similar to yours over our side of the bay. Angelie, you want to say something?
Angely Miranda:Yeah, actually, I just wanted to say because we do have one for anyone who is dealing with student loan debt, they could definitely sign up for one on one services with me. And you I can send you the link to that it's mypathus.org/services/sle-network. And it'll give you just exactly what the student loan empowerment work network does. And you can click and fill out a referral form. And yeah, because I know that there's a lot of this need right now.
Angely Miranda:And people just dealing or actually probably maybe avoiding student loan debt, and even trying not to like, take a look at theirs. So we're here to support and we'll be here as long as we could be here. For those who need that service.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Wonderful. Thank you, Angely. And great name you have 'Angie', by the way. And thank you all for of being part of the Island City Beat podcast.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Really enjoyed the conversation. I hope that you all out there listening enjoyed our conversation. I hope that you come back and join us again for another edition. Until then, I am your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem Take care.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Goodbye, everybody.