Extending helping hand to Latinos in Manatee County

---

The Catholic Charities of Manatee County is reaching out to the Latino community by offering free, first-time homebuyer classes in Spanish.

Instructors will discuss financial counseling, budgets, foreclosure prevention, reverse mortgages, refinancing options and predatory lending schemes.

"What we're trying to do is preparing people to get to their dream, so we are trying to fix credit, repair credit or build credit," said Lucy Martinez with Catholic Charities of Manatee County.

Martinez said the biggest problem she sees with clients is the risk of foreclosure. She said a lot of workers in the construction industry were given loans based on the amount of work they had a couple years ago. However, business has slowed since then and they're currently not working as many hours.

The class is offered regularly at the agency.

Contact Information

More Manatee County Stories

• Deputy suspended after investigation into Taser use
• Manatee County sheriff's sgt. suspended over Taser use
• Nathan Lee to be honored for efforts in 911 reform
• Top gun at annual remote-control plane event is a teen
• Experts rate Bradenton on merits of walkability
• FEMA asked to aid in Chinese drywall issues

• Listen live
• Employee blogs
• Twitter page

• Breaking alerts
• RSS news feed
• Upload video

Select the size text you want to use to view www.baynews9.com from the choices below.

Want to go green?

Going green is all the rage these days. Check out our green pages on BayNews9.com.

• Energy saving tips
• Eating green
• County by county recycling