Often it takes plenty of extra cash on hand to afford a consultation with a financial advisor, but Seattle has a plan to make financial advice available to the people who need it most: the working poor. Using a $1.8 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Seattle will open four “financial empowerment centers” in 2014, where the ten percent of city residents who live in poverty can seek financial advice, coaching, and money management training with the goal to reduce their debt and shepherd them out of poverty. Families will be taught ways to avoid predatory lenders such as payday loans and credit card debt, and financial counselors will work with them intensively for several years. The plan is based on a similar program New York City implemented in 2008, which helped 19,000 families reduce their debt by $9 million.