Over the past year, Washington Appleseed has taken a leadership role (in conjunction with the City of Seattle) in the coordination of activities of the Seattle-King County Asset Building Collaborative (ABC). 

The ABC is a large consortium of about 50 public, private, and non-profit agencies working to ensure access to a continuum of comprehensive, effective services, to help low-income/working residents reach economic stability and security.  While Seattle-King County has many asset building services, the programs and agencies largely operate in isolation.  This collaborative is developing projects to work together to connect King County's low income population with the services they need, when they need them, to achieve their financial goals.  These services include increasing participation in public benefits, access to financial mainstream products and services, homeownership opportunities and foreclosure intervention, access to IDAs, financial literacy, credit repair, education and training, and other services designed to move individuals along the road to economic self-sufficiency. By staffing the ABC, Washington Appleseed ensures that the enthusiasm and expertise of the diverse ABC agencies is harnassed in order to implement its many asset building strategies.

Major ABC projects currently include:

•  Bank on Seattle-King County: This initiative will connect residents of Seattle/King County who are "unbanked" or "underbanked" to mainstream financial services.  There are currently an estimated 52,000 households in King County who are "unbanked", and our goal is to open checking accounts for at least 5,000 by the end of the first year and 10,000 by the end of the second year.

   

  The ABC and about two dozen banks and credits unions have been working over the past several months to develop products that will provide people with alternatives to paying excessive fees for financial services, so they can keep more of what they earn and start on a path to improved financial success.  In addition, some institutions will offer substantial financial incentives for any newly banked customers who complete a required number of financial education class hours, provided by our ABC members. The institutions will track data about these accounts, so we will be able to evaluate the success of the program from both the perspective of the customer and the financial institution.  Finally, the institutions will pay for substantial advertising and public relations efforts. We plan to launch the program publicly on September, 22, 2008, with an extensive awareness campaign to let people know about the program and why it is valuable to open accounts and how they can begin saving more.  We will be relying on our extensive ABC network to do outreach, targeting low-income residents, immigrants, and refugees, who are often “unbanked.” 

• Working Benefits Project: The ABC's employer/union strategy proposes to bring asset building services to the job site or to workers through their unions.  Reaching out to workers at the job site to inform them of work supports and provide financial education tremendously increases the likelihood that they will take advantage of these resources. It is not only convenient—it harnesses the trust employees place in their employers on financial matters, which increases participation in work support and asset-building programs.

   

  Currently, ten ABC partners have offered to provide workshops on subjects ranging from eligibility and application for work supports (PeoplePoint), financial literacy and money management (Hopelink, Solid Ground, BECU, CENTS), predatory lending (Solid Ground, Consumer Counseling Northwest), steps to homeownership (HomeSight, Solid Ground, El Centro de la Raza, Urban League), tax preparation and the Earned Income Tax Credit (United Way) and debtors’ rights (Northwest Justice Project). to asset building services, with at least 100 accessing public benefits.

   

• EITC/Tax Prep Campaign: The United Way of King County leads an extensive free tax prep/EITC campaign that prepared over 12,000 returns in 2008, returning $14.4 million federal refunds back to the community.  Working with ABC partners, the UWKC plans to increase its asset building strategies by increasing access at its tax sites to public benefits, mainstream financial services, and the newly enacted Working Families Credit. The UWKC also leads the IDA Collaborative.

• Seattle Asset Building Initiative (SABI): For over two years, the SABI project has been a collaborative effort of numerous public and private agencies to develop a system of coordinated asset building services for two specific populations:  Level 1 -  families are just coming out of homelessness into secure housing and receiving intensive case management and supportive services; and Level 2 - individuals and families who have stabilized and reached the “phase of vulnerability” when they may lose public benefits and risk returning to poverty.SABI is not a program, but a time-limited effort to develop a new asset building service delivery system that can work within existing social service systems in Seattle and King County. 

   

  SABI will inform other collaborative efforts of the ABC (i.e., Bank on Seattle) and other concurrent endeavors (the King County 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, the King County Collaborative to Improve Access to and Completion of Post-Secondary Education for Working Adults, the Sound Families Initiative, and Taking Healthcare Home).  All of these efforts are working towards collaborative planning, financing, and delivery of housing and support services to move families from crisis to self-sufficiency. SABI is currently working with eighteen ABC member agencies to provide these services. This new and innovative systems approach to delivering effective asset building services could serve as a prototype for coalitions throughout the State. 

   

• Mortgage Foreclosure Intervention: In 2007, the mortgage foreclosure rate in King County increased 26 percent over the previous year.  ABC is working with partners in the areas of homeownership, housing counseling, and foreclosure prevention, as well as government agencies, lenders, and other advocates to plan a series of educational workshops followed by a community event to help people analyze and act upon their options to avoid foreclosure.  The City of Seattle has also piloted the Foreclosure Prevention Program to combine stabilization loans and counseling, a strategy found to reduce foreclosures by 68 percent among low- to moderate-income borrowers (according to a 2004 study by Freddie Mac).

• Public Policy Advocacy: Washington Appleseed and ABC work with state and local groups to advance public policies in support of asset building.  Three areas of interest to Washington Appleseed include: implementation of the Working Families Credit; expanding jurisdiction of consumer protection laws to allow local prosecutors to address unfair business practices, such as predatory lending; and IDA financiing issues.