The question? Building wealth. The answer? Building connections.
“It almost brings me to tears.” I’m talking with Allyson Ford, GRI, real estate agent with Crye-Leike, in a spacious conference space at her office, and she’s not actually crying—she’s smiling.
“I had a liberal arts background, psychology, arts, music,” she continues. “My first exposure to finances and finance management and wealth building and home buying was real estate school...I learned how property and property investment works. I didn’t have family to teach me that.”
I’m in the same boat. As I explored concepts like money, income, property, and wealth, I found that these are all different and that, in fact, I lacked basic understanding of the terminology.
Over the last decades I’ve evolved from “OMG, which bill has to slide this month” to “I have two months’ rent saved in the bank” and while that, to me, feels wealthy, it’s also precarious. It’s a “haven’t died yet so I must be okay” mentality based on privileges that include race, an old-money speaking voice, and the ability to churn out copy very fast—and a lot of magical thinking. Like a lot of gig workers, I’m one hospitalization away from homelessness, yet I tend to imagine I’m a member of the empowered intelligentsia.
At the same time, for a Chattanoogan I really am remarkably privileged. This cheek-to-cheek dance of privilege and precariousness is not a good thing. It allows us to tell ourselves falsehoods; it underwrites perverse alliances while masking the need for real, solid social connection—networks, in other words. For those with the most precarious income and housing, I found out, networks are missing; yet, they’re key to stability.
Chattanooga is the Gig City; our median income is growing; but our income disparity is growing, too. About 20 percent of us live in poverty. Disparities fall across multiple, related vectors—neighborhoods are astoundingly segregated by income level. Census tract 120 (Lookout Mountain) has an average income of $124,028, according to Census data, while a stone’s throw down the hill, Census tract 19 (Alton Park) has a median income of less than a sixth of that, at $19,293. Race and gender also impact wealth and poverty—though Black people only account for a third of our population, they make up more than 45 percent of Chattanoogans in poverty.
Race and neighborhood patterns aren’t accidental; they represent a shunting of populations around as some neighborhoods become more “desirable” and developments price existing communities out of their homes, leading to further community breakdown and exacerbated inequality. (Chattanooga Organized for Action has a collection of resources on neighborhood migration and housing.)
Moving from the city to the family level, The Times Free Press’s masterful “The Poverty Puzzle” series describes the struggles facing individual families as they strive—and often fail—to climb out of poverty. If anything, the article argues, growing up poor in Chattanooga is a predictor of living in even deeper poverty as an adult. Similarly, passing barriers from low-middle to middle income becomes more difficult; the poles (wealth and poverty) are becoming, metaphorically speaking, “stickier”, while the middle is dwindling.
When asked to look at this puzzle through the lens of what the individual Chattanoogan can do to build wealth, or at the very least to escape the “next emergency” cycle familiar to poor and lower-middle class people, at first I felt like I was looking at an elephant through a magnifying glass. This is backwards! We’re talking systemic inequality! This is applying bootstrap logic to issues way too big for bootstrapping!
But as I talked to experts, I found that yeah, understanding wealth—or failing to understand it, in my case—is pretty important. And we develop that understanding through networks.
Banking—Yes, You Need To. No, It’s Not Scary.
“How long ago was that [since you were afraid of banks]?” Dionne R. Jenkins, vice president of diversity and inclusion at Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union, asks me.
I feel like I’m visiting a therapist. Less than two decades, I admit. Like a lot of people, I saw banks as black holes into which money fell and might not—what with fees and charges—ever come out again. I kicked and complained the first time a job made me set up direct deposit.
“We still hear that today!” Jenkins says warmly. “But anybody can open an account with a credit union; we offer multiple accounts with no fees at all.”
For people without experience having money—people without basic financial literacy—“changing mindsets is difficult,” Jenkins says. “We’ll send wealth advisors out to talk to people with no money.”
People need answers to basic questions such as, “How do you start saving to gain wealth? How do you start saving to gain access to money?” Jenkins says. “We take experts in our organization to break it down to show steps to how you get there.
“We meet people where they are—we take the scary factor out of it, humanize it, here’s where I think you are, here’s how you can take the steps to get there. Once you see them as an individual and talk with them about how they can do it, it breaks down the unknown.”
There are two sides to this conversation. On one hand, people who are unbanked benefit from regularizing their finances, even if it may seem scary. On the other hand, institutions need to look at everyone, whether fast-food employees or gig workers, as potential partners, treating them with trust and respect. That, says Jessica McCosh, APR, marking specialist with TVFCU, is where organizations like TVFCU come in.
“When you go into our branches, financial services consultants are there to help members and guide them,” she says. “We are very intentional about building trust with our member base.”
For a simple illustration, Jenkins says, members and tellers generally look at computer screens together, rather than only the teller seeing the member’s information on the screen. TVFCU also works intentionally around areas of diversity and inclusion, she says, which again manifests in how people are treated. Employees work to unlearn unconscious biases that may affect financial outcomes for clients. These include race bias as well as bias against non-English speakers and gender minorities.
Of course, Jenkins and McCosh add that credit unions are the best places to keep your money secure—no credit checks to become a member, dividends paid on even small accounts, no minimum opening deposit.
“We go into schools and talk about financial literacy and why it’s important to start saving,” Jenkins says. “The thought is, you are saving at home in a piggy bank, but move it to a credit union and you can earn dividends on your money as well.”
Home Ownership, Not Just for the House
Back to Allyson Ford, the real estate agent. She sees her job not as making individual sales, but helping people “move forward in life and finances with home ownership.”
Home ownership, she continues, is empowering. New home owners “feel better about themselves; there is confidence, they have a sense of being in the community, more rooted…a sense of accomplishment.”
And indeed, home ownership can underlie a larger stability in life.
Still, how do you get there? Ford explains that realtors will work with young people, those with minimal savings, even those going through job loss or divorce. Mortgage companies can find options for people without money for a down payment—the Veteran’s Administration, Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, the Federal Housing Administration, and other organizations can all provide down payment assistance, Ford says.
Whether or not you are moving into a home soon, Ford adds, it makes sense to build a relationship with a realtor early. Similarly, Jenkins says, ongoing conversations with lenders such as TVFCU can empower people with knowledge about home ownership.
“We send representatives with our real estate department to teach seminars for Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise’s home ownership program,” she says. “We make sure our real estate department talks with first-time home buyers. [We help prepare you] not just to get it, but how to get financially sound once you are there. We help you understand what comes after it. You want to be able to furnish it, feel safe, pay bills, have coverage if your A/C breaks, all of that.”
Special Cases—Gig and Post-Prison Economies
Some workers may feel permanently excluded from stability in their work and homes. Gig workers, whether day laborers or freelancers, are some. Others are people with a history of felony convictions.
Timothy Mott, felony community corrections program manager with Hamilton County Corrections Department, works with people from teens to senior citizens with felony convictions. He says it can be difficult for people with convictions to obtain housing and employment. Many grant-funded housing programs, he says, reject applicants with felonies, as do traditional property management companies.
“Probably one of the biggest difficulties we have now is housing,” he says. “I have a client who has been on our program nine months. She makes good money and is able to move out on her own but [the difficulty is] getting an apartment; she has been turned down 17 different times.”
Similarly, employers may discriminate against people who admit to felony convictions on employment; the alternative, to lie, can have even worse consequences.
Just as Dionne Jenkins made me aware that there are two sides to starting a bank or credit union relationship—the potential client ready to learn about finances and the employee empowered and willing to see the client as an individual—Mott tells me he appreciates landlords who are willing to give potential tenants a chance.
“Most independent landlords are more open and receptive,” he says, “but it’s difficult to get a list of them.”
In the meantime, Mott advises people to call ahead and ask about rental qualifications rather than wasting fees—sometimes as much as $45—on futile applications.
Employment, surprisingly, is rising for people with felony convictions, Mott tells me, though it can still be difficult to get a job.
“Unemployment in Hamilton County is the lowest in the state,” he says. “In a normal economy where competition is more tense, [people with felonies] tend to face a lot of rejection; even now they still face some rejection; but a lot of employers will hire ex-felons if the crime is several years old. We are able to place people who have been in jail for murder through numerous drug charges.”
A disciplined pattern of networking—with employers and with offenders who come back and report on who is hiring—makes up an important part of Mott’s work. He puts together other resources, such as affordable counseling and social services, for clients who can benefit.
While he can’t proselytize at work, he doesn’t mind letting people know that a strong connection with a church, mosque, or other religious organization can help build stability. And, like Jenkins, he tells his staff members to really notice clients as individuals, maintaining professional distance but making specific, positive comments with every visit.
Mott encourages employers, especially small business owners with the power of making decisions at a local level, to give applicants with a felony a chance.
“Give them an opportunity,” he says, “and don’t feel guilty or bad about watching over them until they prove themselves. Most are happy to have a job and understand that.”
Networking—creating a team, as Allyson Ford puts it—is important for everyone who seeks stable finances and living situation, but who doesn’t have the traditional fallbacks of family support or regular employment.
“As a person deeply rooted in Chattanooga’s arts community, I understand the needs of people who have chosen a freelance income,” Ford says. “For every buyer, there is no expense in sitting down and talking to a real estate agent.” Even if you don’t purchase now, that person may become a team player you can draw on in the future.
As Ford says, “Who do you work with, who do you talk to, who do you build relationships with so you can move forward?”