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Four months ago, Lakieta Windley-Parker bought a used car with financial assistance from Catholic Charities' Wheels and Ways to Work program.

Weeks later, she transitioned from managing a McDonald's restaurant to being a certified medical assistant.

"If I didn't have the car, I wouldn't have this job," Ms. Windley-Parker told The Evangelist. She also credits Catholic Charities of the Albany Diocese with teaching her how to manage finances.

The Wheels and Ways to Work program and a dozen other agencies nationwide each received a $50,000 grant recently from the national non-profit Ways to Work, Inc. The funding was made possible by a grant from the Walmart Foundation.

Catholic Charities will use its grant money to expand Wheels and Ways to Work, its affordable car loan program.

The Albany program had operated under the name "Wheels to Work" for 35 years until threatened with the loss of state funding last spring. It adopted the "Ways to Work" model, which helps families repair credit status, establish a budget and understand banking.

Compared to programs without such case management, Ways to Work boasts lower delinquency rates and fewer defaults on loans, said Michelle Abel, director of Wheels and Ways to Work.

"It's giving them real-world lending, but someone's still nurturing them," Mrs. Abel said.

Since June, Wheels and Ways to Work awarded two-year, low-interest loans to 16 working families so that each could purchase a car worth up to $5,000.

Applicants for loans must be at least 21 years old, responsible for a minor child and live in Albany, Rensselaer or Schenectady Counties. They must have a New York driver's license, work at least 30 hours a week and earn less than 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines.

Ms. Windley-Parker learned about the program through a commercial. It paid for her registration and a 2009 white Dodge Neon, her first car.

"It's a little car that gets me from A to B," said the 22-year-old. "It's used, but there are no dents or anything on it.

"Banks want too many credit checks and too much money down," she added.

Ms. Windley-Parker lives in Colonie; she can now drive her three-year-old daughter to school. She plans to study nursing at Sage College in Albany.

She talks to staff members at Wheels and Ways to Work a few times a month and enjoys the program's class on budgeting: "It is helping me be responsible, not spend my money. It makes me more independent."

(For more information, call 346-3861.)[[In-content Ad]]

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