Lansing is lending a helping hand to low income people facing financial problems

Low income families in Lansing will soon have access to a special financial counseling program.

The city is getting a $1.5 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Living Cities-Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund to underwrite the three year program.

Joan Jackson Johnson is Lansing’s director of Human Resources and Community Services. She says the program will provide one-on-one financial counseling for up to four thousand city residents, “and provide the depth of services they need to finally stand on their own and reach a point where they are independent.”

Lansing’s ‘financial empowerment center’ is patterned after a successful program in New York City.