New Economic Rights for All
(New ERA)

Launched in Fall 2010 with support from the Department of Children, Youth and their Families, New ERA is a youth organized project designed to expand access to quality financial services in San Francisco for low-income youth and their families. Quality financial services access brings both financial security and economic mobility within reach for youth and families.

In the wake of the worst financial crisis in our history and in the midst of significant financial insecurity and unemployment, Mission SF Community Financial Center created New ERA to bring youth voices into the dialogue about how to improve the landscape of financial services and economic opportunities in San Francisco and beyond. More specifically, our goal is to support a team of youth to explore the relationship between high-cost fringe financial services and financial insecurity and to identify community-based solutions to bring about financial security and economic mobility—and then to organize their friends and families and communities around a related campaign.

New ERA started with payday lenders, researching how they operate and the effects of having these often predatory fringe institutions in our communities, and engaging youth from other impacted neighborhoods. Mission SF linked New ERA with consumer advocates to gather information about policy solutions and with University of San Francisco students to find out what other states and municipalities across the country have done to eliminate payday lenders.

To learn more about Mission SF's New ERA initiative, please contact Celina Ramos-Castro by email or by phone at (415) 206-0846 [ext. 19].