Tulsa Responds And FEC Join Forces To Help Families Build Financial Stability

Tulsa Responds is now partnering with the city of Tulsa to help residents become more financially stable and independent.

The Financial Empowerment Center (FEC), a city of Tulsa initiative, now has another location to help Tulsans with financial counseling, this one at Tulsa Responds.

"One great reason that we are happy to partner with Tulsa Responds is the fact that they are embedded in their different community providers anyway, and so that’s not a model that’s new to them," Joshua Ganye with the city of Tulsa's office of financial empowerment said.

Joelle Galapate-Ikpo with Tulsa Responds said helping people manage their finances is one of the main reasons for the new partnership.

"Our main mission truly is to empower our clients, and through financial literacy, we will be able to help them build a path towards long-term stability and financial independence," Galapate-Ikpo said.

Hieu Le is the FEC's program manager. He said helping clients on their financial journey is a comprehensive process, but it's also a necessary one.

"We go through their entire process and their spending and their interactions and relationship with money. Then, we move forward with the money tracking. So we have a money tracking, which helps the client to budget," Le said.

Le also said programs like what the FEC and Tulsa Responds provide are crucial because not enough people are being taught about finances in general.

"Finance is not something that’s being taught at home, and financial topics can be a taboo when it comes to really discussing it," Le said.

The hope with this partnership is to get more people learning about their finances so they can have more opportunities to thrive financially. You can sign up for free appointments with an FEC counselor at tulsaresponds.org/FEC.