In late October, Compass celebrated our new FSS partnership in Philadelphia at an event hosted by GreenLight Fund - Philadelphia. The event included Philadelphia’s top leaders across the nonprofit sector, corporate executives, entrepreneurs and investors, and city and state government leadership, as well as our partners Philadelphia Housing Authority and Clarifi.
Akirah Pressley, who is one of the very first people to enroll in this new program, shared the following words at the launch event:
Good evening. My name is Akirah Pressley, and I am one of the first people to enroll in the Compass FSS program run by Clarifi.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I am 26 years old, and have moved over 20 times in my lifetime. That is one reason why my main goal in this program is to become a homeowner. I want a place called my own, and the stability that owning a home can give.
The other reason I want to own a home is my son. He will be 9 years old next month. I don’t want him to go through the same things that I had to go through. I want him to have a place that he can point to and say “this is where I grew up.”
I had my son young, when I was 17. I’ve learned a lot of things since then, but I’ve had to learn them on my own. I want better than what I had and where I came from. I want better for my son.
If it wasn’t for PHA, I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent. I know a lot of people are embarrassed of being on PHA. They won’t go in to ask for help or resources. And there’s a lot of people with negative things to say about people on PHA, like you’re walking around with all this extra money because PHA helps with your rent. You have to understand that the money you earn is broken down into a percentage. And I still have to pay my own gas and electric, get to work, take care of my child. What I want is to not have to wonder where I’m going to get the money to take care of things in my life, to have to choose between paying a bill or something else. I’ve been working at it, and every year I become better.
But I feel like if I had had someone to guide me, that there’s a lot of things I went through that I wouldn’t have had to go through.
Clarifi is one place that has already really helped me. I’ve been working with Clarifi since 2015. I feel appreciated at Clarifi. I feel like you all care that I am a person who wants to do better. You want to help me because I want to help myself. With Clarifi’s help, I’ve worked on bringing down my debt and have started to build some savings. I have saved what I could, but I would like to have been able to save more.
I know I need to save more in order to reach my goals, and this FSS program means I don’t have to do that alone, on my own. I started off in my first job making $5,000 a year, working part-time as a retail associate at Macy’s. Now I work as a one-to-one assistant in Philadelphia Public Schools, and have another job as well.
I know with this program that the more I make, the more I save. The program rewards me for hard work. That’s a motivation for me. Right now, I’m in school part-time for early childhood education. I plan to eventually open my own daycare business. And when I do, I want it to be a place where other parents can learn about programs and resources that can help, because I am the type of person who will share what I learn, when I find something that’s beneficial to me.
I also share what I learn with my son. At 8 years old, he already knows things like the difference between a credit and a debit card. He has also started his own savings, and we are planning to open a savings account for him soon.
To close, I just want to say that I believe that everyone deserves a chance and an opportunity to do better, and that there a lot of people in Philadelphia who are looking for a program like this. Thank you.