Poor financial health can keep people from accessing city services like affordable housing. Even if they otherwise qualify, bad credit can be an obstacle. So San Francisco has developed a program that provides anyone who lives in, works in, or gets services from the city with a financial coach free of charge. The Office of Financial Empowerment established Smart Money Coaching six years ago. Fixing Our City producer <a href="https://twitter.com/CintiaLopez916">Cintia Lopez</a> test-drives the program by talking to a Smart Money Coach about her own finances. | <a href="https://sfchronicle.com/pod">Unlimited Chronicle access</a>: sfchronicle.com/pod Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle’s <a href="https://sfchronicle.com/sfnext">SFNext</a> Project Got a tip, question, comment? Email us at <a href="mailto:sfnext@sfchronicle.com">sfnext@sfchronicle.com</a> Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

We Put Two People Who Disagree About Housing in a Room and Nobody Died

Like any big city, San Francisco has big problems. Rampant homelessness, an opioid epidemic, widening income equality and deep political divisions. What’s stopping the city from fixing itself? Where are the creative solutions? And what happens when one person’s solution is another’s root of the problem? Host Laura Wenus and producer Cintia Lopez are on a quest to find out, one San Francisco story at a time.
SFNext: Fixing Our City is part of the San Francisco Chronicle's SFNext project.
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