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The Financial Empowerment Blueprint explores <br />a strategy to address the racial wealth gap in <br />South Bend through financial empowerment <br />initiatives that work to empower residents to <br />establish a financial foundation, manage and grow <br />financial well-being, and ultimately build wealth. <br />Specifically focusing on racial wealth equity, the <br />Blueprint enacts this strategy by encouraging the <br />enhancement of current programming through <br />the lens of financial empowerment, serving as a <br />guide for establishing partnerships, and calling <br />for new programmatic initiatives that can slow <br />and help to reverse the racial wealth gap in South <br />Bend. This strategy will inform the exploration and <br />implementation of the new Financial Empowerment <br />Center, located in the newly renovated Martin <br />Luther King Jr. Community Center in 2024. <br />The first steps in executing the strategy in the <br />Financial Empowerment Blueprint are to work on <br />the initial enhancement of City programs—Youth <br />Jobs SB, Pathways, and Community Homebuyers <br />Corporation—and explore the development of the <br />Financial Empowerment Center. As this Financial <br />Empowerment Blueprint is intended to be a living <br />document, the strategy outlined therein will <br />continue to evolve based on the successes and <br />challenges of these initial steps, new research, and <br />resident wealth-building needs in the future. <br />CONCLUSION <br />FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT BLUEPRINT 37