Last September, Ginnette was very discouraged about her ability to improve her credit. She was in a position in which she had to pay for all of her transactions with cash and, even though she was working, needed a co-signer in order to buy a car. She lived in Hyde Park and had recently paid a local credit repair company to help improve her score. Instead of assisting her, the company actually made her credit worse, as they told her to stop paying her bills and that they would help in the event of collection settlements.
It was at this point that Ginnette, a single mother with a 15-year-old daughter, came to Urban Edge. She was assigned to work with Milagros Pascual, a new counselor with extensive banking experience. Together they accessed Ginnette’s credit score, which was very low, and began to develop an action plan and budget from which they could work as a team to help Ginnette achieve her goals.
After several meetings over the course of a few months, Ginnette was able to score several wins, including settling four collection accounts with balances totaling $5,656 for just $2,605; working to update her Public Records and Trade accounts; improving her credit score by 10 points in a single month; completing a First-Time Homebuyer Class in November; and entering and winning a Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC) rental housing lottery. She is currently saving to buy her own home.
