For 25 years, a Dollar Bank program has sought to empower homebuyers through financial literacy education
By Tim Grant / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Longtime renters, Brian and Andrea Parrish crossed a major milestone last year when they finally closed on their Turtle Creek home.
Soon after moving into the $135,000 house, they discovered the roof needed replacing immediately and it would cost $10,000. With no landlord to call, they were faced with a massive responsibility, literally hanging over their heads.
“We thought everything was good. We thought we had more time on the roof,” Mr. Parrish, 47, said. “We closed, and a few weeks later, our insurance carrier required us to get a new roof or we would lose our homeowners insurance.”
The reality of being homeowners hit hard as they were forced to borrow to pay for the new roof, and then add the monthly debt repayment to their already tight household budget.
However, they had one thing to fall back on. They turned to the personal finance skills they learned in Dollar Bank’s Homeownership Program, in which they were enrolled while going through the mortgage approval process. The program aims to teach first-time and even experienced home-buyers the do’s and don’ts of a process that can be life-changing in a positive way, but can also leave the unprepared in financial ruin.
One year later, the couple is current with their mortgage, even if keeping up with other bills and expenses has been a struggle with both of them working part-time as dietary aids for a skilled nursing facility.
“It’s a really good program,” Mr. Parrish said, adding that a relative bought a house through Dollar Bank and then recommended the program to him and his wife. “We had a great experience in it.”
Generational impacts
For 25 years, Dollar Bank has offered the free program for people seeking to buy a home.
It starts with cleaning up their credit and learning some basic skills about the credit system, budgeting and saving towards the down payment and closing costs. Dollar Bank’s annual event — the Way Home Homebuying Workshop, which introduces people to the program — has enrolled more than 5,000 people since 1999, when it started as a workshop for single mothers, bank officials said.
Morton Stanfield, a senior vice president and head of community development at Dollar Bank, said the homeownership program has impacted generations of Pittsburgh families in the past quarter century.
“We have people coming into the program now over the last couple of years whose parents and grandparents went through our program,” Mr. Stanfield said. “And they are coming into our program younger and younger.
“They’re no longer just first-generation homeowners,” he said. “These are second and third generation homeowners. That’s really our proof that this program is not changing one individual’s life, but multiple generations.”
Dollar Bank pulls a credit report for everyone who enrolls and creates an individualized plan to help them reach their goal of becoming homeowners. A core component of the preparation is personal finance education with an emphasis on budgeting.
“You cannot talk about homeownership without talking about financial wellness, in general,” said Kelly Bowman, a Dollar Bank Homeownership counselor who teaches financial education classes.
Some people complete the classes, yet decide not to buy a house because their goals may have changed, she said. Still, the financial education they receive can improve their quality of life.
“We gauge our success in the program measuring how much we have moved that needle of financial awareness,” Ms. Bowman said.
“If we can set you up where you’re in a better financial position that is vastly different than when you entered the program, we feel like that’s a win for the community.”
‘I hadn’t saved a lot’
Carla Smith, 41, didn’t just get a house through Dollar Bank, she also got control over her finances — control she had previously never known.
She had lived in apartments, rented rooms, even shelters and on a few couches in her adult life. She was ready to do whatever she had to do to own a home and get her life on track financially.
“I didn’t have good credit,” she said. “I was working a part-time job and hadn’t saved a lot.”
That all changed when she signed up for Dollar Bank’s Homeownership program a few years ago with the goal of becoming a homeowner by age 40.
She reached her goal in November 2023 with the purchase of a $140,500 home in Penn Hills.
In the program, she said, she learned for the first time about credit — how it works, how to safeguard it and how use it to her advantage. She raised her FICO credit score from around 400 to the high 700s.
It’s a new level of financial know-how that she’s determined to maintain.
“If I don’t have nothing else, my credit is not going to fail,” Ms. Smith said. “I make sure my bills are paid and my credit is good. I was never taught that growing up in my household. It was never a big thing.”
Ms. Smith works in an accounts receivable department of a local organization. She said she achieved her homeowner goal by sticking to a strict budget that includes paying off bills and saving.
“My mortgage is paid at the beginning of the month. I don’t care what else I’ve got to do,” said the mother of two sons, ages 12 and 20. “I make sure I can pay every one of my bills and can still do the extra stuff without putting myself in a financial bind.”
‘Being safe, cautious buyers’
Oliver Beasley, 38, was working for the city of Pittsburgh in former Mayor Bill Peduto’s office when he bought a $100,000 house in Elliot, in the West End, through Dollar Bank in 2019. He now works at the Allegheny Conference and is still in the process of renovating the house while living in it.
Housing counselors at the bank told him exactly how much he would need to save for the house he had targeted for purchase, he said. They opened an account for him to add money toward his escrow.
His credit score was already high enough for a mortgage. Once he saved enough for the purchase, he looked for a place he liked, but it was also important that the payments not cost more than 30% of his income.
“You can have what you can afford, or you can live a little bit below your means and always be safe, is what we were taught,” Mr. Beasley said. “That put things in perspective for me.”
After going through the program, his approach was that rather than buying a house costing 30% of his and his partner’s combined income, they looked for a house that cost 30% of one of their incomes, ensuring that lesson of safety, he said.
“You can have what you can afford, or you can live a little bit below your means and always be safe. ... That put things in perspective for me.”
“So, in any event of a life event happening, we’ll still be able to afford our home,” Mr. Beasley said. “It’s less risky to base the payment on one income.
“That’s being safe, cautious buyers and homeowners, and good stewards.”
Help with down payments
Dollar Bank also offers $5,000 to participants who complete the homeownership program, demonstrate an ability to save for their down payment, and then purchase a home through the bank.
“Sometimes the down payment is the biggest roadblock,” said Ms. Bowman.
“They’ve got their credit in order,” she said. “They’ve got their work history. They’ve been doing everything right, but it’s difficult to save for that down payment.”
The program offers a five-to-one savings match, Ms. Bowman said. Participants are required to save $1,000. For those who do, Dollar Bank matches that with $5,000, which goes directly toward down payment and closing costs.
“It can be added to other grants offered in the area, too,” Ms. Bowman said. “You can stack that right on top. A lot of customers don’t even need to bring anything to closing.”
The big workshop sponsored by Dollar Bank each year in May — The Way Home — is a one-day standalone event. The homeownership program itself is open year-round. Anyone can enroll at any time, and everyone moves at their own pace, bank officials said.
“You may be in the program for one or two years or more,” Ms. Bowman said. “We have people who have been in the program a very long time.
“Or, you have people who come into the program, get what they need and they are turned around and closing on a home in one or two months.”