Almost half of Wilmington residents are one missed paycheck away from poverty − many with no assets to fall back on or bank accounts to tap.
For more than 35 years, the Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council (DCRAC) has worked to address those gaps by helping individuals who have been systemically prevented from accruing generational wealth to gain financial stability and independence.
The nonprofit believes that the solution is granting community members, a majority of whom are low-income or people of color, access to financial tools to set them up for financial stability.
DCRAC has received a $25,000 grant from the Gannett Foundation’s A Community Thrives program to help with those efforts.
A Community Thrives is a grant-making and crowdfunding initiative set up by the USA TODAY Network granting millions of dollars to nonprofits representing the communities of Gannett’s hundreds of local media publications, including Delaware Online/The News Journal.
This year, over 24,000 people crowdfunded over $3.5 million, which combined with the $2.3 million from the Gannett Foundation to distribute funds to over 200 organizations nationwide.
More local nonprofits:5 Delaware organizations seek grant money to impact local communities. Here’s how to help.
“We are incredibly proud of the positive impact A Community Thrives grants have in communities across the country,” said Chairman of the Gannett Foundation and Gannett CEO Mike Reed. “From providing essential services to enhancing the lives of underserved groups, our grants will enable these incredible organizations to expand their reach and empower their communities even more.”
The Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council provides free money managing classes, low-cost legal services and advocates for public policy. DCRAC has also set up the Stepping Stones Community Federal Credit Union to ensure their clients have access to affordable and safe loans while also raising awareness about predatory lending, fraud and other ways in which wealth can be stripped from the community.
“Because so many generations of so many communities haven’t been treated fairly when it comes to financial inclusion and opportunity, there’s simply no passing down of knowledge when it comes to [things like] opening a bank account or managing a mortgage,” said Rashmi Rangan, executive director of DCRAC. “It’s then a huge mental shift to engage with traditional banking. All these things are learned, and not everyone gets to learn them at home.”
In the past year, over 2,300 Delawareans attended a class on money management; 1,548 formerly un-banked individuals began banking with DCRAC’s Stepping Stones Community Federal Credit Union program, 333 of whom are in Delaware prisons. An additional 107 were represented in IRS or Tax Court using DCRAC’s low-to-no cost legal services.
With the grant money, Rangan and her DCRAC team plan to focus on resolving tangled title cases for clients whose property may not be registered in the proper way. By working through these cases, DCRAC plans on ensuring that owners are able to keep their properties and advance homeownership rates in more marginalized communities.
Their work doesn’t stop there. DCRAC has also begun taking preemptive steps to stop predatory lending practices and perpetuating cycles of poverty and financial instability.
“Public policy must step in to address the blight that is predatory lending,” Rangan said. “Until policy shapes the landscape, we work with families trying to extricate themselves from the practices that result in their tangled state today.”
Contact Molly McVety at mmcvety@delawareonline.com.
