“Our motto at Haven Neighborhood Services is, ‘your financial and housing crisis ends here!,” said Erika Toriz, Founder and CEO of Haven Neighborhood Services. “This is not an over-promised statement but rather, a set standard we place on ourselves to go above and beyond for our clients who are hopeless and high-risk of being homeless.”

And Haven Neighborhood Services has certainly made it their mission to go above and beyond by offering financial counseling and literacy services, housing programs and renter’s counseling, in addition to free tax preparation services to low and moderate income Angelinos throughout Los Angeles county.

Toriz is especially proud of Haven’s recent success with its free tax preparation services offered through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. This work has been further bolstered by the support Haven receives as a Community Connect program grantee with Golden State Opportunity.

Haven started offering free tax preparation services and promoting the flexibility of tax credits like the CalEITC and Young Child Tax Credit in 2020. Their first year, they completed 600 tax returns while during the ongoing tax year, they have already prepared 3,500 tax returns. Earlier this year they also partnered with GSO to offer a free tax preparation Tacos & Taxes event at Chaffey College in Fontana.

“I think we’ve had such success because we are at the forefront of the community,” said Toriz. “We have a good track record with our community and are culturally sensitive. When they come and file their taxes, we make them feel at home and we make an effort to connect them with other programs and resources that will help them. For them to trust an agency to do their taxes isn’t easy, especially as so many of them have been taken advantage of by predatory tax preparers in the past.”

Toriz has had clients tell her horror stories about predatory preparers in their pasts, who charged them $1,500 to do their taxes or charged per W2.

That’s part of why partnering with GSO made sense to her and why Haven has a goal to further expand their free tax preparation services each tax year. They also aim to make connections with other nonprofits serving these communities and to that end hosted the inaugural Partnership.LA summit to connect non-profits working on these issues, including GSO.

“Our work is important because if we are not here, the people who want to prey on the community will still be here,” Toriz said. “If you don’t have financial education, you are more likely to be a victim of these predatory practices. I think our services are much needed to be able to move the economy and our community forward in the right way and help those who are working hard and struggling. We give them the tools to make better decisions.”

Learn more about the work of Haven Neighborhood Services.