In this episode of Live with Living Cities, host Justin Charles is joined by Madelaine Britt, Manager of Rochester’s Office of Financial Empowerment, and Santiago Carillo, Assistant Director of Business Ownership at Living Cities, to explore how rent reporting can help make credit more equitable. Together, they discuss why so many renters remain “credit invisible,” how that exclusion limits access to opportunity, and what happens when cities help turn on-time rent payments into a pathway toward financial stability, belonging, and long-term economic mobility.
Credit is one of the quiet systems shaping who gets to build a future in a city. It can determine whether someone can buy a home, start a business, move into a better apartment, recover from a setback, or access fair financial opportunities. And yet, for many renters, the largest bill they pay every month has historically done little to help them build credit.
In this episode of Live with Living Cities, host Justin Charles is joined by Madelaine Britt, Manager of the Office of Financial Empowerment for the City of Rochester, and Santiago Carillo, Assistant Director of Business Ownership at Living Cities, for a conversation about Rochester’s work to change what counts. Together, they explore how rent reporting can help address credit invisibility, why that invisibility disproportionately affects Black, Brown, and low-income communities, and what it means for a city to treat renters’ stability as an asset rather than just an expense.
Through both a systems lens and a city lens, this conversation looks at how Rochester is using policy, partnerships, and financial empowerment strategies to turn rent from a monthly burden into a bridge toward opportunity, belonging, and long-term economic mobility.
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