COLUMBUS, Ohio — It's National Financial Literacy Month and the city of Columbus is offering free services at its Financial Empowerment Center to help residents reach their financial goals.
No matter how long the sessions take or how many they need, trained financial counselors are ready to help residents get their finances back on track.
The services are provided by the City of Columbus and Jewish Family Services to anyone 18 and older in central Ohio and include one-on-one time with a professional.
Mayor Andrew Ginther and Columbus City Councilmembers said that increasing financial empowerment can lead to financially secure residents and an economically secure city.
The counselors can go over boosting your credit score, decreasing debt, budgeting and managing your finances and meeting your saving goal.
"Our counselors do explore with people what does money mean to you and what did it look like growing up. So, unpacking where do your financial behaviors come from and we do have a lot of clients say like, I wish I would have learned this in school or I wish I would have learned earlier," Financial Empowerment Program Manager Lydia Daniels said.
The center saw its first client in 2022 and since then, their counselors have helped more than 500 people.
Daniels said the amount of total non-mortgage debt they have been able to help their clients reduce is more than $1.1 million.
"It's a lot easier to learn the behaviors and build your skills starting young as opposed to we do see people who come through like in a big financial mess," Daniels said. "We're working with them to untangle it when it would have been a lot easier and a lot less damaging to have been taught it when they were younger."
Sessions can be done virtually, over the phone, and at the five locations across central Ohio. This includes Jewish Family Services, Karl Road Library, Parsons Library, Hilltop Library and the CMHA Rise Center.
All of the information residents share will be kept confidential.