BRAZOS VALLEY, Texas — Habitat for Humanity in Bryan-College Station is offering financial literacy courses to help families become financially aware and stable when it comes to home buying.
“We think it’s a good idea to make sure that the families that are going to be in a 30-year mortgage and buy their own home, they need to have some good grounding and financial matters,” said Charles Coats, Director of Homebuyer Services, Habitat for Humanity BCS.
Melody Woodard had her home built by habitat for humanity in College Station.
“I just want a house,” said Melody Woodard, College Station resident. “I just want to build. I just want something for me and my kids. One day, I was just riding by and I seen people just building homes.”
Before moving into her home, she took the required financial courses and learned many helpful tips along the way.
“A few years ago, we got the idea and thought ‘hey wait a minute, this is some really good information we’re only teaching to a handful of people every year," said Coats. “It makes a lot of sense that we would offer it to the public and we partnered with United Way through a grant to start doing that.”
The financial workshop classes are taught by local banking and finance experts, covering budgeting, credit repair, debt management and more.
“The classes itself were great,” said Woodard. “It was amazing. It was awesome. It was a group of people. It was a team. We had somebody to teach us, and what it did was it helped us to understand how you can financially save, how you can budget your money, how you can plan for your family, how you can grow within your family as well.”
After offering the financial classes for about four years, they look forward to helping all in the Brazos Valley who are looking to become homeowners.
“It’s evolved over time to become something that I believe has a lot of potential to help people whether or not that actually buy a house from Habitat for Humanity,” said Coats. “We’re in the business of helping people in our community get a decent, affordable home.”
Woodard said the takeaways from the courses improved the quality of life for her and her six children.
“I started to budget,” said Woodard. “I started to save, and we started to take trips, so we did good.”
Habitat for Humanity said its goal is to create financial support through affordable housing, giving families the opportunity to build a future for themselves.