Who benefits from the EITC?
Keeley's story

Last year, Keeley G., a 26 year-old Nashua woman sought help with her tax returns from a volunteer at the Nashua Economic Opportunity Center, one of 69 sites across New Hampshire offering free tax preparation.

“When he told me I'd be getting more than $2100 back as an Earned Income Tax Credit, I couldn't believe it,” she said. “I put the money together with some savings to buy a more reliable car. The one I had was an old boat that kept breaking down and wasn't safe. Last winter, I often had to ask for rides.”

In short, the $2,127 EITC check that enabled Keeley to buy a reliable car allows her to function more self-reliantly and maintain a busy schedule that involves getting to work, to school, to her daughter’s day care, to medical appointments, and to visit family in another state.

Two years ago, fleeing an abusive living situation in North Carolina, Keeley returned to her native New Hampshire with her five-month-old daughter in a U-Haul rented with a family member’s credit card.

“I arrived in Nashua homeless, without money, a job, or a car,” she says.

A woman on the move
But today, Keeley is a young woman on the move who not only has a reliable car, but a home, a job, bank accounts, and firm career plans.

She was accepted into Nashua Pastoral Care Center’s transitional living program, and now lives with her daughter in a one bedroom apartment she rents through the Center.

“The transitional housing program requires me to be in school, so I enrolled at New Hampshire Community Technical College here in Nashua to study marketing. I hope eventually to get a job as a marketing rep for a pharmaceutical company,” says Keeley. “I also work part-time as an appointment secretary at a Dartmouth Hitchcock pediatric clinic.”

Keeley lives on a strict budget and maintains savings and checking accounts with a credit union. “I'm also enrolled in a financial literacy program, and I've begun saving to buy my own home through an Individual Development Account,” she says.

“I left home when I was very young, with all these ideas about what I wanted to do, but no idea about where or how to start,” says Keeley. “I didn't know how to ask for help and didn't think I needed any. Becoming a parent changed all that. I've learned to reach out, and I've had a lot of help.”