National nonprofit Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE Fund) today announced its selection of the City of St. Louis as an inaugural city in its new Emergency Financial Empowerment (EFE) initiative. The EFE initiative will assist local governments to build and expand their emergency preparedness and response infrastructure to support the individual and family financial needs of their residents. Locally, the initiative will be led locally by the City's Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) and St. Louis Treasurer's Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE).

Natural and human-caused disasters and emergencies often significantly impact the financial stability of residents with unexpected expenses, loss of income, and other financial stresses. These shocks can lead to long-term financial consequences, especially for underserved communities. While individuals and families suffer these impacts, they also must contend with navigating what assistance resources are available, as well as their eligibility and the process for accessing those resources. The strain of natural disasters, public health crises, and other localized emergencies disproportionately affect underserved communities. Additionally, a household's financial stability before a disaster takes place can have a major impact on their ability to access relief programs when emergencies do happen. For example, 90% of Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan denials since 2001 have been for "unsatisfactory credit history," "lack of repayment ability," or both.

Through the EFE initiative, the City of St. Louis will now be able to provide its residents with more streamlined access to financial support resources. CEMA and OFE will receive technical assistance from the CFE Fund on connecting financial empowerment supports to emergency response procedures; these supports could range from individual financial counseling to prepare for emergencies to helping residents navigate requirements across federal grant and loan applications after a disaster. The CFE Fund engagement will be supported by a $150,000 grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of their Greenwood Initiative, a philanthropic effort that aims to accelerate the pace of wealth accumulation for Black individuals and families and address systemic underinvestment in Black communities.

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Dallas, TX; Gainesville, FL; Rochester, NY; and Saint Paul, MN were also competitively chosen for CFE Fund's inaugural Emergency Financial empowerment cohort. The City of St. Louis and other grantees were selected for their demonstrated interest in identifying the role of local emergency management in household financial resilience.

"Empowering St. Louis residents to take charge of their finances has been a central focus of my tenure in City government. As Treasurer, I launched our Office of Financial Empowerment to help residents make better and more informed financial decisions," says Mayor Tishaura O. Jones. "I'm excited to see how our OFE and City Emergency Management Agency will collaborate with area partners to provide the support and education our residents need before the next emergency."

"Being selected for the EFE grant is a significant achievement for St. Louis and its residents," says Adam Layne, Treasurer for the City of St. Louis. "This funding will allow us to expand access to essential resources and educational opportunities, providing a path to greater financial stability for individuals and families. Financial stability is crucial for building stronger, more resilient communities, and this grant will play a key role in helping St. Louis residents achieve long-term economic empowerment."

"OFE's focus is to ensure every City of St. Louis resident can be financially fit and access the support needed to reach their financial goals," says Chrissy Fitzpatrick, Director of the St. Louis Office of Financial Empowerment. "Through this collaboration with the Emergency Management Agency, we are building a network of stakeholders to help residents take control of their finances and be ready when faced with the next emergency."

"Just in the past five years, City residents experienced at least two impactful emergencies to the region – the COVID-19 pandemic which led to lost wages as businesses temporarily closed due to stay-home orders in 2020, followed by devastating flash flooding in July 2022," says Sarah Russell, Commissioner for the City of St. Louis Emergency Management Agency. "There's also the personal emergencies residents face, from medical issues to home or vehicle repairs. Any of these could lead to financial hardship if we do not prepare."

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"Financial stability is foundational to preparing for and recovering from an emergency, and the CFE Fund is thrilled to work together with Mayor Jones' administration to ensure the City of St. Louis and other local governments can incorporate the array of public and community financial empowerment resources to support individual and family finances for emergencies," says Jonathan Mintz, President and CEO of the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund. "Thanks to generous support from Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative, this new Emergency Financial Empowerment initiative will help City residents better prepare for and recover from unexpected disasters."

The EFE initiative represents a new partnership between emergency management and financial empowerment, bringing a financial stability lens to emergency preparedness and recovery. This collaboration will help ensure that residents from across the city can access these supports, including those zip codes and populations who have historically been disconnected from city services and thus are more vulnerable to the impacts of disasters.

"When communities experience natural disasters, the financial, housing, and job stability of its residents are all simultaneously tested. This burden has a greater effect on the most vulnerable families," says Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative. "That's why local strategies to combat disaster-induced financial inequity are so critical. Through this partnership, the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund will create opportunities to significantly strengthen local emergency responses and prepare our communities in a way that centers underserved residents."

About the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE Fund)

The CFE Fund supports municipal efforts to improve the financial stability of households by leveraging opportunities unique to local government. The EFE initiative draws on the CFE Fund's extensive programmatic work over almost a decade with local government leaders in over 100 cities and counties, connecting critical on-the-ground insights about the impact of financial instability on families, communities, and municipal budgets with tangible, measurable, and sustainable municipal strategies to improve families' financial lives. The EFE initiative grows particularly from the CFE Fund's COVID-era Financial Navigators program; over 26,400 client sessions, the initiative helped residents in 31 localities individually navigate the array of local, state, and federal resources made available during the crisis. The CFE Fund has disbursed over $66 million in grant support to municipal partners. For more information, please visit www.cfefund.org or follow us on Twitter at @CFEFund.

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