A 20-year member contacted us at Educational Systems FCU to apply for the purchase of a new property. Her credit scores were in the high 500’s and Metro was buying her property that she had lived in for almost 30 years to expand transit service in the Washington DC region. Our member was being provided with a package that would give her a sufficient down payment and closing costs for her new home, however her credit history posed a problem. We reviewed her relationship with the credit union and worked with her to improve her financial status. Over the course of six months while she shopped for her home, she prepared a budget, cleared up derogatory accounts and improved her credit scores by over 50 points. She has been repaying her mortgage satisfactorily for 3 years now and is building her savings with the credit union.