2026 Bank On WA Forum Agenda

Day 1

Day 2

Day 1

Session D: Banking Obstacles and Solutions for Immigrant Communities

10:45-11:45 AM

Angelíca Yanten Winter, Guía Education & Consulting

Hollyanna Volpat Steiner, Peninsula Credit Union, 

Scott Bossom, WaFd

Immigrants face a variety of challenges when they seek banking services. As a result, many undocumented individuals save their money at home, putting their savings at risk. The presentation will outline these challenges, explain their root causes, and suggest solutions for each. 

Session G: Affordable Health Care for all Washingtonians and Financial Health

12:00-1:00 PM

Lee Che Leong, Northwest Health Law Advocates

US immigration policy perpetuates systemic inequity and racist exclusion, a reality reflected in Washington where the vast majority of individuals without federal immigration status are people of color. Federal policies that largely deny many immigrants access to healthcare mean that many Washingtonians go without critical health care.  Being undocumented is the strongest predictor of being uninsured in Washington.  In 2019, nearly 1 out of every 4 uninsured adults in Washington lack coverage due to their immigration status.  This year federal changes from H.R. 1 continues to strip health coverage access from many lawfully present Washingtonians including refugees and asylees.

Washington is working to mitigate this harm through 2 programs:
1) expanding access to all Washingtonians to HealthPlanFinder, our state insurance marketplace with state subsidies for those up to 250% FPL, and 
2) the Apple Health Expansion/Medicaid-like program for adults without access to federal subsidies or federal Medicaid up to 138% FPL
However, current funding for both programs is limited.

Thankfully WA also has programs available regardless of immigration status such as Charity Care at hospitals and Apple Health for Kids.  

You're invited to come learn more about current programs, health access options in WA regardless of immigration status, and what you can do to improve access.

Catch this optional “Part 1” with Lee Che:

Upcoming Immigrant Health Changes, Challenges & Options Thursday August 6th, 2026

Workshop Recording | Presentation Slides | Federal Health Care Changes Hub - Northwest Health Law Advocates

Session I: Build a Bridge in Immigrant & Refugee Communities 

12:00-1:00PM

Moderated by Mary Vargas, Tacoma Community House

This interactive workshop provides practical tools to build bridges of trust and cross-cultural connection within immigrant and refugee communities. Participants will collaborate on actionable strategies to overcome integration barriers and strengthen local support networks.

Session K:A Continuum Approach to Housing Stability and Wealth Building

2:00-3:00 PM

Emily Jameson, Self-Help Federal Credit Union 

Antonia Mende, OIC of WA

For many households, housing is not just a need—it is one of the most powerful pathways to long-term financial stability and generational wealth. Yet for low-income, rural, and immigrant communities, the path to homeownership is often delayed or denied due to systemic barriers 
such as limited credit history, insufficient savings, rising housing costs, and reliance on high-cost financial products.

This session will explore a relationship-based, continuum of care model that supports members from financial instability to sustainable homeownership—and beyond. Rather than focusing solely on loan approval, we invest in long-term readiness, often working with members for two to 
three years prior to purchase to build credit, grow savings, and stabilize household finances through culturally competent, in-house financial coaching and leveraging relationships with external, mission-aligned agencies. 

Day 2

Session T: Elevating Tax Benefits Through ITIN Partnerships

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Ryan McFerran, United Way of King County

Tasha Dalstra, United Way of King County

Raquel Gomez, Seattle Credit Union

ITIN filers including immigrants and refugees remain significantly underrepresented among users of free tax services outside of King County. Community organizations across Washington operate hundreds of free tax assistance sites each filing season. In 2025, these sites collectively helped file more than 48,000 tax returns statewide. Within King County, United Way prepared 40% of all VITA/TCE returns in Washington last year, and more than 70% of all VITA/TCE returns filed for ITIN holders statewide.

Strong partnerships with local financial institutions, like Seattle Credit Union, have made all the difference. This integrated service model helps reduce key barriers in the ITIN application process, which is often complex, time-consuming, and costly for many low-income households.

Seattle Credit Union's broader impact strategy focuses on serving the most underserved communities across its footprint, with the goal of helping all Washingtonians build generational wealth and long-term financial stability, regardless of immigration status. 
This session will briefly address key data security considerations, including IRS data-sharing agreements and coordination with law enforcement agencies, to ensure that expanded service delivery models maintain strong protections for client privacy and trust.

Session R: Housing Stability Through The Cooperative Model for BIPOC Communities

1:30-2:30 PM

Kaleb Hoeffgen, Northwest Cooperative Development Center

Isaias Espinoza, Northwest Cooperative Development Center

This presentation looks at how housing cooperatives and the broader cooperative economy can support housing stability and economic resilience for BIPOC and marginalized communities across Washington State. It draws on the work of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC), which has spent more than 30 years helping people create and sustain cooperatively owned housing and businesses. The focus is on how shared ownership models—especially Resident Owned Communities and worker co-ops—can keep housing affordable, prevent displacement, and give communities more control over their economic future.

We’ll share practical examples from NWCDC’s work, including housing co-ops, business start-ups, and ownership conversions. These stories connect to a broader idea: that housing stability is the foundation for financial health. The session also looks at the realities facing immigrant and refugee communities, especially as policies shift, and how financial stress shows up in people’s physical and mental health. Rather than staying abstract, this part of the presentation is grounded in what’s actually working—and where the gaps still are.

The final section steps back and looks at where the cooperative sector stands in Washington today, and what it will take to grow it. That includes addressing banking and resource deserts that leave many communities—especially rural and Tribal areas—without safe, affordable financial services. We’ll talk about how lenders, public agencies, and community partners can better support cooperative ownership, and what it would look like to build a stronger, more inclusive ecosystem around shared ownership and long-term stability.

Day 1

Session E: From Application to Outcome: Reducing Fallout in the Homeownership Journey

10:45-11:45AM

Jasmyn Jefferson, Windemere 

Gregory Davis, Black Home Initiative

The Black Home Initiative (BHI) and its Leadership Council are examining a critical challenge in the homeownership ecosystem: the “fallout rate,” or the percentage of prospective homebuyers who begin the process but do not successfully complete it. Data from BHI’s service area shows that approximately 600 Black households per year exit the homeownership process, with fallout rates reaching as high as 34%, highlighting persistent gaps across financial systems, housing markets, and support services.

This session is designed not only to present data, but to actively engage lenders, loan officers, and housing professionals who directly influence homeownership outcomes. Through facilitated discussion, participants will share frontline insights to help uncover root causes, particularly around withdrawals and other less visible drivers of fallout, and contribute to identifying practical strategies that can improve outcomes across the homeownership pipeline.

Session H: Rewriting the Rules of Credit: Advancing Housing Stability Through Equity-Centered Underwriting

12:00-1:00 PM

Maria Sennett, Beneficial State Foundation

Evelin Martinez, Washington Homeownership Resource Center

David Puszczewicz, WSECU

Stable housing is foundational to long-term financial health, yet traditional credit and underwriting models continue to reproduce racial and structural inequities. Built on historically exclusionary assumptions about "risk," these systems often disadvantage borrowers from communities that have been underserved or excluded from mainstream financial institutions, undermining both equity and housing stability.

This session explores how lenders and partners are actively rewriting the rules of credit to expand access to safe, sustainable housing while maintaining safety and soundness. Drawing on lessons from the Underwriting for Racial Justice (URJ) program and applied training in Reimagining Homeownership Services with a Racial Justice Lens, presenters will examine how core underwriting frameworks, such as the Five C's of Credit, can be interrogated, adapted, and reimagined through an equity-centered lens.

Participants will hear directly from Washington-based lenders who have operationalized these shifts, including concrete changes to mortgage product design, underwriting flexibility, and internal policies and change management practices. By pairing conceptual framing with real-world implementation, the session offers actionable strategies for moving from risk aversion to risk management, demonstrating how equity-forward underwriting can strengthen housing outcomes, expand market reach, and remain aligned with regulatory expectations.

Session K: A Continuum Approach to Housing Stability and Wealth Building

2:00-3:00 PM

Emily Jameson, Self-Help Federal Credit Union 

Antonia Mende, OIC of WA

For many households, housing is not just a need—it is one of the most powerful pathways to long-term financial stability and generational wealth. Yet for low-income, rural, and immigrant communities, the path to homeownership is often delayed or denied due to systemic barriers 
such as limited credit history, insufficient savings, rising housing costs, and reliance on high-cost financial products.

This session will explore a relationship-based, continuum of care model that supports members from financial instability to sustainable homeownership—and beyond. Rather than focusing solely on loan approval, we invest in long-term readiness, often working with members for two to 
three years prior to purchase to build credit, grow savings, and stabilize household finances through culturally competent, in-house financial coaching and leveraging relationships with external, mission-aligned agencies. 

Day 2

Session V: Build a Bridge in the Continuum of Housing Stability

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Moderated by Krosbie Carter, Propvisor

Housing stability depends on more than housing alone. Many organizations play a role in whether people can find and keep a home, have choices about where and how they live, and build toward their financial goals - even when housing isn't the focus of their work.

Together, we'll look beyond our traditional roles to see how our work shapes the housing journey, identify where people are left to navigate gaps between organizations and systems, and uncover new ways we can work together to strengthen housing and financial security.

Session R: Housing Stability Through The Cooperative Model for BIPOC Communities

1:30-2:30 PM

Kaleb Hoeffgen, Northwest Cooperative Development Center

Isaias Espinoza, Northwest Cooperative Development Center

This presentation looks at how housing cooperatives and the broader cooperative economy can support housing stability and economic resilience for BIPOC and marginalized communities across Washington State. It draws on the work of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC), which has spent more than 30 years helping people create and sustain cooperatively owned housing and businesses. The focus is on how shared ownership models—especially Resident Owned Communities and worker co-ops—can keep housing affordable, prevent displacement, and give communities more control over their economic future.

We’ll share practical examples from NWCDC’s work, including housing co-ops, business start-ups, and ownership conversions. These stories connect to a broader idea: that housing stability is the foundation for financial health. The session also looks at the realities facing immigrant and refugee communities, especially as policies shift, and how financial stress shows up in people’s physical and mental health. Rather than staying abstract, this part of the presentation is grounded in what’s actually working—and where the gaps still are.

The final section steps back and looks at where the cooperative sector stands in Washington today, and what it will take to grow it. That includes addressing banking and resource deserts that leave many communities—especially rural and Tribal areas—without safe, affordable financial services. We’ll talk about how lenders, public agencies, and community partners can better support cooperative ownership, and what it would look like to build a stronger, more inclusive ecosystem around shared ownership and long-term stability.

Day 1

Session G: Affordable Health Care for all Washingtonians and Financial Health

12:00-1:00 PM

Lee Che Leong, Northwest Health Law Advocates

US immigration policy perpetuates systemic inequity and racist exclusion, a reality reflected in Washington where the vast majority of individuals without federal immigration status are people of color. Federal policies that largely deny many immigrants access to healthcare mean that many Washingtonians go without critical health care.  Being undocumented is the strongest predictor of being uninsured in Washington.  In 2019, nearly 1 out of every 4 uninsured adults in Washington lack coverage due to their immigration status.  This year federal changes from H.R. 1 continues to strip health coverage access from many lawfully present Washingtonians including refugees and asylees.

Washington is working to mitigate this harm through 2 programs:
1) expanding access to all Washingtonians to HealthPlanFinder, our state insurance marketplace with state subsidies for those up to 250% FPL, and 
2) the Apple Health Expansion/Medicaid-like program for adults without access to federal subsidies or federal Medicaid up to 138% FPL
However, current funding for both programs is limited.

Thankfully WA also has programs available regardless of immigration status such as Charity Care at hospitals and Apple Health for Kids.  

You're invited to come learn more about current programs, health access options in WA regardless of immigration status, and what you can do to improve access.

Catch this optional “Part 1” with Lee Che:

Upcoming Immigrant Health Changes, Challenges & Options Thursday August 6th, 2026

Workshop Recording | Presentation Slides | Federal Health Care Changes Hub - Northwest Health Law Advocates

Session L: Build a Bridge in Financial Health is Healthcare

2:00-3:00 PM

Moderated by Kitty Grasswell, YWCA

Day 2

Session U: Disability & Financial Health

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Ruth Daugherty,  NW Access Fund

People with disabilities are far less financially healthy than people who do not have disabilities. They have lower employment rates, lower incomes and less savings, and higher debt burdens and lower credit scores; they are also 3 times more likely to be unbanked. The reasons for these disparities are complex and far-reaching. Financial institutions and financial educators can work to address some of these problems by developing disability competency, understanding disability benefits and the restrictions that come with them, creating thoughtful products that address the needs of disabled people, and providing inclusive financial education. 

Session S: Financial Stress Is a Health Issue: How Practitioners Can Respond Without Doing It All

1:30-2:30 PM

Becky House, American Financial Solutions

Abby McCutcheon, American Financial Solutions

Susan Romei, Banner Bank

Fernando Espina, Banner Bank

Liz Seeley, Neighborhood House

Financial challenges don’t stay confined to bank accounts; they show up in stress, health outcomes, workplace performance, and family stability. Practitioners across sectors are often the first to see these impacts, but many are unsure how far their role should extend.

This session explores the connection between financial stress and health and offers practical guidance on how to respond without overextending. Attendees will learn how to identify when a client needs additional support, how to build effective referral pathways, and how cross-sector partnerships can improve outcomes without requiring any one organization to do it all.

Grounded in real-world examples, this session emphasizes a key message: you don’t need to be the expert in everything – you need to know how to connect people to the right support.

Day 1

Session F: Build a Bridge in Banking & Resource Deserts

10:45-11:45 AM

Molly Morris, Rural Resources

Andrea Alexander, NW Native ABC

This facilitated discussion will bring together ideas and connections for communities with limited access to resources. Both physical distance to available resources and inequitable barriers prevent people from walking their path to financial security.

Together, we will delve into the question: How do we support and protect consumers often driven to riskier and more expensive financial service alternatives because of lack of access?

Session H: Rewriting the Rules of Credit: Advancing Housing Stability Through Equity-Centered Underwriting

12:00-1:00 PM

Maria Sennett, Beneficial State Foundation

Evelin Martinez, Washington Homeownership Resource Center

David Puszczewicz, WSECU

Stable housing is foundational to long-term financial health, yet traditional credit and underwriting models continue to reproduce racial and structural inequities. Built on historically exclusionary assumptions about "risk," these systems often disadvantage borrowers from communities that have been underserved or excluded from mainstream financial institutions, undermining both equity and housing stability.

This session explores how lenders and partners are actively rewriting the rules of credit to expand access to safe, sustainable housing while maintaining safety and soundness. Drawing on lessons from the Underwriting for Racial Justice (URJ) program and applied training in Reimagining Homeownership Services with a Racial Justice Lens, presenters will examine how core underwriting frameworks, such as the Five C's of Credit, can be interrogated, adapted, and reimagined through an equity-centered lens.

Participants will hear directly from Washington-based lenders who have operationalized these shifts, including concrete changes to mortgage product design, underwriting flexibility, and internal policies and change management practices. By pairing conceptual framing with real-world implementation, the session offers actionable strategies for moving from risk aversion to risk management, demonstrating how equity-forward underwriting can strengthen housing outcomes, expand market reach, and remain aligned with regulatory expectations.

Session J: Finding the Oasis in the Financial Deserts

2:00-3:00 PM

Lisa Smith, Washington State Microenterprise Association

Participants will explore and discover the power they have to search and find the information they need to support their dreams.

There are organizations that have been working together for years to break down barriers to opportunity. They have been inspired to change how things are done because they themselves were once in a place where they didn’t know the right person or weren’t living in the right location or didn't know what was out there. 

During this session, the presenters will share stories and ideas that will inspire, because over and over when we share information and opportunity, vital change happens for the good. This workshop shines a light on signposts and the pathways to these oases in the desert and then offers simple practical tools to access and use these resources.

Session T: Elevating Tax Benefits Through ITIN Partnerships

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Ryan McFerran, United Way of King County

Tasha Dalstra, United Way of King County

Raquel Gomez, Seattle Credit Union

ITIN filers including immigrants and refugees remain significantly underrepresented among users of free tax services outside of King County. Community organizations across Washington operate hundreds of free tax assistance sites each filing season. In 2025, these sites collectively helped file more than 48,000 tax returns statewide. Within King County, United Way prepared 40% of all VITA/TCE returns in Washington last year, and more than 70% of all VITA/TCE returns filed for ITIN holders statewide.

Strong partnerships with local financial institutions, like Seattle Credit Union, have made all the difference. This integrated service model helps reduce key barriers in the ITIN application process, which is often complex, time-consuming, and costly for many low-income households.

Seattle Credit Union's broader impact strategy focuses on serving the most underserved communities across its footprint, with the goal of helping all Washingtonians build generational wealth and long-term financial stability, regardless of immigration status. 
This session will briefly address key data security considerations, including IRS data-sharing agreements and coordination with law enforcement agencies, to ensure that expanded service delivery models maintain strong protections for client privacy and trust.

Session Q: Building Financial Safety and Inclusion for Survivors of Gender Based Violence

1:30-2:30 PM

Sabrina Hamm, FreeFrom

Raven Aäe, Haliruna Consulting

Helen Gibson, Express Credit Union 

Nuray Ozbay Bilir, Self Help Credit Union

Through multiple surveys of more than 2,000 survivors across the nation, FreeFrom has learned from survivors about their experiences with financial institutions, their current financial needs, and how their financial accounts are impacted by economic abuse. This research confirmed the call to action: survivors need tailored services that address their unique needs. Otherwise, survivors may be locked out of financial services key to navigating daily life and
safety.

In this session, attendees will learn both how gender-based violence and economic abuses can be perpetuated through financial services as well as actions they can implement to support survivors. Elizabeth Escobar (Express Credit Union) and Nuray Ozbay Bilir (Self-Help Credit Union) will provide guidance and examples of how the industry can respond to survivors’ needs. After this session, attendees will understand the role they can play in ending gender-based violence and supporting survivors’ long-term financial security.