Strategies

Establish publicly funded investment accounts for every newborn, accessible at age 18

Build assets through child development accounts (CDAs) with contributions from a sponsoring organization, such as government agencies or nonprofits, and family, friends; also called children’s savings accounts (CSAs)

Support financial institutions providing services to underserved and disadvantaged communities

Offer debt advice from trained providers to tenants with unpaid, overdue rent to help repay debt and increase financial literacy

Provide education on basic budgeting, bank use, credit management, bankruptcy, credit building and counseling, homeownership, retirement, divorce, etc.

Apologize for discriminatory housing policies; increase subsidies, financing, and paths to homeownership for people of color; and invest in systematically disadvantaged neighborhoods

Support subsidized asset accumulation programs in which deposits by participants with low and moderate incomes are matched by program sponsors; withdrawals must be used for qualified expenses to retain matching funds

Return the rights to land, property, and resources to Native people as part of policies and initiatives that promote tribal sovereignty

Support programs that provide matched dollar incentives for low or moderate income individuals to place some or all of their tax refund in a savings account

Support programs that provide small loans, usually to individuals with lower incomes, to start or expand a small business, often with business development training and other technical assistance

Protect underground water resources via regular groundwater monitoring, education about risks to groundwater, water quotas and taxes, and other efforts

Regulate short-term loans that must be repaid by a borrower’s next pay day via bans, caps on maximum interest rates and loan amounts, or require minimum loan terms and credit cost

Use pervious concrete, porous asphalt, permeable interlocking pavers, open-jointed blocks or cells, or other permeable pavement in individual or commercial development efforts; also called porous or pervious pavement

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Use ready-made or home constructed barrel systems to collect and store rainwater from rooftops that would otherwise flow to storm drains and streams

Establish bioretention systems (e.g., rain gardens, bioretention cells, green roofs, planter boxes, bioswales, etc.) to make city landscapes more permeable to help control stormwater

Apologize for the history and legacy of slavery and provide direct payments or community investments to Black descendants of people enslaved in the U.S.