Financial Stability Program
Lutheran Social Services offers individual coaching through our Financial Stability Program, offering ongoing financial and employment services tailored to meet each client’s needs. A counseling approach is used to achieve long-term goals. Financial counseling, budgeting, repairing damaged credit programs, increasing credit scores and decreasing your debt, income supports, workshops as well as employment and career counseling.
Location:
LSS Main Office
2149 Collingwood Blvd., Toledo, Ohio 43620
Call to schedule an appointment with a financial counselor at 419-243-9178
LSS helps clients change for the better
Carrie Schuster was simply looking for help. Recently homeless due to a domestic violence situation, Schuster needed someone to listen to her and understand her situation.
Carrie, of Toledo, said she found that at Lutheran Social Services of Northwestern Ohio. She has been a client at LSS since September 2021, working with her personal Financial Counselor.
“I was homeless, in between jobs, in a domestic violence situation, and not with my kids. I was struggling with everything in life at that point,” Carrie said.
“Then I came to LSS, and Jill has always listened to me, helped me as much as she can.”
Carrie is just one of the many success stories from the LSS Financial Stability Program. She went from being homeless and unemployed to having a home for her and her three children and a new job at Walmart.
Another client who has successfully navigated her way back to financial health, Theresa Hart has been working with Program Director Megan Pickering since February 2017. She filed for bankruptcy the following year, and since then, Theresa and Megan have steadily been improving Theresa’s credit rating and financial health.
“I was struggling with money and how to use it because I was never taught finance in school,” Theresa said. “Megan gives me that extra encouragement.
“It’s self-control. When I see it on paper, it helps me realize what I need to do for my goals.”
Theresa said she’s closer than she’s ever been to achieving her goal -- homeownership.
The clients aren’t the only ones undergoing drastic changes. The Financial Stability Program at LSS has recently seen its own transformation.
“I’m not quite sure how I found LSS, but one thing is for certain, I’m thankful that I did,” Carrie said. “My first meeting, I was nervous, but I was also going through so much at that time. I was staying in motels or on someone’s couch. My kids were not together. ... I couldn’t allow my kids to go through being homeless. If they were good, I was.
“I know I teared up at that first appointment. Jill was and has been amazing since day one. She wants to see me do and be better in life.”
Emergency Rental Assistance
LSS of Northwestern Ohio has been named by the City of Toledo as one of three agencies to handle the distribution of Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) funds. That money is from a variety of sources, including federal grants. The portal through the City is currently closed to new applications.
LSS of Northwestern Ohio is also the lead partner with the City of Toledo and the Toledo Public School district on handling ERA applications and funds specifically for households that include at least one TPS student. The Tenant Based Rental Assistance program will use $100,000 provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HOME Investment Partnership funding, to provide 12 months of rental assistance, rent security deposits, utility payments, and utility security deposits to an additional 10 homeless families that have household incomes at or below 60 percent of the area median income.
All applicants must email
