The documentary Shift Change, produced by Melissa Young with Mark Dworkin and Moving Images, highlights the Mondragón cooperatives in Spain’s Basque Country, as well as a number of U.S. cooperatives. A recent review points out how the film also shows that operating a successful worker-owned co-op is not always simple. Shift Change, this review notes, presents worker-owned co-op as an attractive, alternative business model — especially in countries hit hard by the global economic crisis— while honestly portraying the challenges of sustaining a successful enterprise.
In an article for the October issue of Shelterforce, James Carr of the Opportunity Agenda cautions that the way the mortgage finance system is rebuilt after our current housing collapse will have a profound effect on the housing market for years to come. Carr argues that a vibrant and healthy housing market is one that offers affordable and equitable homeownership opportunities to all American families as well as quality rental options. While other proposals for a secondary mortgage market would create eligibility hurdles or a dual credit market, Carr calls for a single institution that can pilot innovative products and services and push the envelope on comprehensive community investment as the only means of solving our current housing woes while making the American dream more equitable.
To protect the un-and-under-banked from excessive fees and high-cost predatory lenders, Karen Harris argues that we reinstate the US Postal Savings System.In an article for The Shriver Brief, Harris shows that the now-defunct system once provided safe banking services for immigrants and working people that private banks did not.Citing examples of successful postal banking services in other countries, Harris shows how reinstating such a system in this country could help underserved populations by providing affordable banking services, while giving the Post Office a needed boost in jobs and income.
The International Cooperative Alliance's newly released paper, Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade lays out their “2020 Challenge,” which aims to position the cooperative form of business as the world’s leading model in economic, social, and environmental sustainabilityby the end of the decade.
The Debt Resistors Operations Manual, put together by an anonymous collective of activists from Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street contains practical information, resources and tips for individuals dealing with indebtedness in the United States. Covering all aspects of the debt system — from personal debt to municipal debt — the manual shows how households, cities and countries are controlled by a system of debt.
The fourth in a series from the Center for Responsible Lending, this report examines the economic impact on homeowners living in neighborhoods suffering from foreclosures.Relying on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and Lender Processing Services (LPS) data, the authors find that $1.95 trillion in property value has been lost by residents living in close proximity to foreclosures, over half of that loss is experienced by communities of color, and that families affected by nearby foreclosures have lost, or will lose, more than $21,000 in household wealth by virtue of their proximity. In addition to the immediate financial consequences for families that lose their homes, such as a loss of equity and financial cushion, communities with high rates of foreclosures also suffer long-term consequences, such as a loss of tax revenue and a proliferation of blight.
In a policy memo from the Progressive Policy Institute, Ira Harkavy and Rita Axelroth Hodges of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania call on government to increase its support fo partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education. Given the immense resources available to colleges and universities, these anchor institutions have the potential to ground civic partnerships working to revitalize local communities. To do so, they must change their organizational structures and make civic engagement a core principle across all levels of the institution. The federal government, by targeting existing resources, directing financial incentives and mobilizing the bully pulpit, can help catalyze this shift.
Enterprise Community Partners released this update to its National Mortgage Settlement report which shows that less than half of the $25 billion from the National Mortgage Settlement is being allocated for housing related uses.Researchers Andrew Jakabovics and William McHale found that while the majority of states are directing most, if not all, of their funds toward housing activities, the largest recipients are not. Instead, these states have directed their share to state general funds or left the final use undetermined. Among the states that did allocate their share of funds to housing related uses, most set aside funds for homeowner legal assistance and housing counseling programs. However, they also found that for these states, the actual process of disbursing the funds is more complicated, and lengthier, than might be assumed.
This manual by Minsun Ji of El Centro Humanitario and Tony Robinson of the University of Colorado, Denver, intended for workers (especially immigrant workers) and their advocates, provides detailed information about how to create, finance, manage, and grow worker cooperatives.
Farzana Serang, J. Phillip Thompson and Ted Howard
This report from The Democracy Collaborative and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT focuses on the path-breaking Vision 2010 Program implemented in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio by University Hospitals System. Over a five year period, the initiative targeted more than $1 billion of procurement locally to create jobs, empower minority- and female-owned businesses, and create a “new normal” for responsible, community-focused business practices in the region.
Published by the Center for Community Change, this guide for community organizers provides a broad view of the benefits of worker-owned cooperatives and shows how they align with the goals of grassroots organizing groups. Author Nina Daskur demonstrates how cooperatives uphold the principles of solidarity and democracy that are the foundation of community organizing, and are especially relevant in the current economic and political climate. Intended to lay out both the advantages and challenges of a co-operative business model, the paper profiles worker-owned cooperatives in four different service occupations that are typically characterized by low wages –home health care, child care, food service, and housecleaning –and identifies useable mechanisms that organizers could undertake to help advance alternative ownership in communities.
Good Jobs First and The Iowa Policy Project use statistical analysis to show how policies advocated by the American Legislatives Exchange Council (ALEC) have not only failed to produce positive economic results but have actually resulted in worse outcomes for states. Written by Dr. Peter Fischer, the report finds that ALEC’s proscribed policies to reduce or abolish progressive taxes, weaken unions, invest less in education and public services, and shrink the social safety net to promote job creation and growth have led to economic inequality, wage suppression, income stagnation, and a sharp deduction in state and local revenue needed to maintain public infrastructure and systems.
Greening the Bottom Line, a report from the Sustainable Endowments Institute, highlights the role of green revolving funds —an energy-efficient financing mechanism that colleges, universities, and nonprofits have increasingly adopted as a means to fund sustainability initiatives in their buildings and operations. Authors Emily Flynn and Mark Orlowski show that the cost savings of these funds boost the bottom line for institutions while also replenishing the fund for investment in the next round of green retrofits, thus establishing a sustainable funding cycle.
PolicyLink examines how cities across the United States are adopting urban agriculture as a means to address equity issues in our food system and communities. This report details the benefits of urban agriculture, looks at innovative strategies to overcome common challenges, and offers policy recommendations to ensure equity in the growing movement. It lays out how urban agriculture can improve access to healthier food through innovative distribution, processing, and marketing efforts; improve economic health by creating jobs, attracting new business, and creating savings for families; and improve community health by using vacant or underused urban spaces to create safe, clean outdoor spaces for people to gather.
Robert Hickey, Jeffrey Lubell, Peter Haas and Stephanie Morse
The Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s new report by Robert Hickey and Jeffrey Lubell measures how combined housing and transportation costs burden moderate-income households.Looking at the 25 largest metro areas in the United States and using newly available data, the report finds that the problem has not only gotten worse in the last decade but also that moderate-income households are disproportionately saddled by these heavier costs. Notably, transportation costs vary greatly and influence the overall affordability of metro areas significantly. Moderate-income homeowners also carry heavier cost burden than renters. The report offers policy implications of these trends and highlight promising approaches available to local and state governments that help make the combined costs of place more manageable for moderate-income.
In this report, Reconnecting America focuses on creating complete communities – places where people can live, work, move, and thrive in a healthier, more equitable, and more economically competitive way — and identifies opportunity areas — the places within our cities and regions where we can get a jump-start on this vision.Rating all 366 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas based on indicators in four categories: Living, Working, Moving and Thriving, the authors offer examples of successful policies and strategies for “completing” communities — from zoning changes and suburban retrofits to community benefits agreements.
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy’s (COWS) latest report is the third in a series that looks at what works (and what does not) in the green economy. Author Sarah White argues for a more coherent, cross-sectoral and broad-based approach to developing human capital and greening community economic development that is driven by equity, democratic participation, and sustainability. After reviewing the current gloomy realities of green politics, the report offers a number of possible interventions — highlighting best practices and lessons learned — that bring together workers, employers, industry and training systems in and out of typical clean energy sectors.
The documentary Shift Change, produced by Melissa Young with Mark Dworkin and Moving Images, highlights the Mondragón cooperatives in Spain’s Basque Country, as well as a number of U.S. cooperatives. A recent review points out how the film also shows that operating a successful worker-owned co-op is not always simple. Shift Change, this review notes, presents worker-owned co-op as an attractive, alternative business model — especially in countries hit hard by the global economic crisis— while honestly portraying the challenges of sustaining a successful enterprise.
In an article for the October issue of Shelterforce, James Carr of the Opportunity Agenda cautions that the way the mortgage finance system is rebuilt after our current housing collapse will have a profound effect on the housing market for years to come. Carr argues that a vibrant and healthy housing market is one that offers affordable and equitable homeownership opportunities to all American families as well as quality rental options. While other proposals for a secondary mortgage market would create eligibility hurdles or a dual credit market, Carr calls for a single institution that can pilot innovative products and services and push the envelope on comprehensive community investment as the only means of solving our current housing woes while making the American dream more equitable.
To protect the un-and-under-banked from excessive fees and high-cost predatory lenders, Karen Harris argues that we reinstate the US Postal Savings System.In an article for The Shriver Brief, Harris shows that the now-defunct system once provided safe banking services for immigrants and working people that private banks did not.Citing examples of successful postal banking services in other countries, Harris shows how reinstating such a system in this country could help underserved populations by providing affordable banking services, while giving the Post Office a needed boost in jobs and income.
The International Cooperative Alliance's newly released paper, Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade lays out their “2020 Challenge,” which aims to position the cooperative form of business as the world’s leading model in economic, social, and environmental sustainabilityby the end of the decade.
The Debt Resistors Operations Manual, put together by an anonymous collective of activists from Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street contains practical information, resources and tips for individuals dealing with indebtedness in the United States. Covering all aspects of the debt system — from personal debt to municipal debt — the manual shows how households, cities and countries are controlled by a system of debt.
The fourth in a series from the Center for Responsible Lending, this report examines the economic impact on homeowners living in neighborhoods suffering from foreclosures.Relying on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and Lender Processing Services (LPS) data, the authors find that $1.95 trillion in property value has been lost by residents living in close proximity to foreclosures, over half of that loss is experienced by communities of color, and that families affected by nearby foreclosures have lost, or will lose, more than $21,000 in household wealth by virtue of their proximity. In addition to the immediate financial consequences for families that lose their homes, such as a loss of equity and financial cushion, communities with high rates of foreclosures also suffer long-term consequences, such as a loss of tax revenue and a proliferation of blight.
In a policy memo from the Progressive Policy Institute, Ira Harkavy and Rita Axelroth Hodges of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania call on government to increase its support fo partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education. Given the immense resources available to colleges and universities, these anchor institutions have the potential to ground civic partnerships working to revitalize local communities. To do so, they must change their organizational structures and make civic engagement a core principle across all levels of the institution. The federal government, by targeting existing resources, directing financial incentives and mobilizing the bully pulpit, can help catalyze this shift.
Enterprise Community Partners released this update to its National Mortgage Settlement report which shows that less than half of the $25 billion from the National Mortgage Settlement is being allocated for housing related uses.Researchers Andrew Jakabovics and William McHale found that while the majority of states are directing most, if not all, of their funds toward housing activities, the largest recipients are not. Instead, these states have directed their share to state general funds or left the final use undetermined. Among the states that did allocate their share of funds to housing related uses, most set aside funds for homeowner legal assistance and housing counseling programs. However, they also found that for these states, the actual process of disbursing the funds is more complicated, and lengthier, than might be assumed.
This manual by Minsun Ji of El Centro Humanitario and Tony Robinson of the University of Colorado, Denver, intended for workers (especially immigrant workers) and their advocates, provides detailed information about how to create, finance, manage, and grow worker cooperatives.
Farzana Serang, J. Phillip Thompson and Ted Howard
This report from The Democracy Collaborative and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT focuses on the path-breaking Vision 2010 Program implemented in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio by University Hospitals System. Over a five year period, the initiative targeted more than $1 billion of procurement locally to create jobs, empower minority- and female-owned businesses, and create a “new normal” for responsible, community-focused business practices in the region.
Published by the Center for Community Change, this guide for community organizers provides a broad view of the benefits of worker-owned cooperatives and shows how they align with the goals of grassroots organizing groups. Author Nina Daskur demonstrates how cooperatives uphold the principles of solidarity and democracy that are the foundation of community organizing, and are especially relevant in the current economic and political climate. Intended to lay out both the advantages and challenges of a co-operative business model, the paper profiles worker-owned cooperatives in four different service occupations that are typically characterized by low wages –home health care, child care, food service, and housecleaning –and identifies useable mechanisms that organizers could undertake to help advance alternative ownership in communities.
Good Jobs First and The Iowa Policy Project use statistical analysis to show how policies advocated by the American Legislatives Exchange Council (ALEC) have not only failed to produce positive economic results but have actually resulted in worse outcomes for states. Written by Dr. Peter Fischer, the report finds that ALEC’s proscribed policies to reduce or abolish progressive taxes, weaken unions, invest less in education and public services, and shrink the social safety net to promote job creation and growth have led to economic inequality, wage suppression, income stagnation, and a sharp deduction in state and local revenue needed to maintain public infrastructure and systems.
Greening the Bottom Line, a report from the Sustainable Endowments Institute, highlights the role of green revolving funds —an energy-efficient financing mechanism that colleges, universities, and nonprofits have increasingly adopted as a means to fund sustainability initiatives in their buildings and operations. Authors Emily Flynn and Mark Orlowski show that the cost savings of these funds boost the bottom line for institutions while also replenishing the fund for investment in the next round of green retrofits, thus establishing a sustainable funding cycle.
PolicyLink examines how cities across the United States are adopting urban agriculture as a means to address equity issues in our food system and communities. This report details the benefits of urban agriculture, looks at innovative strategies to overcome common challenges, and offers policy recommendations to ensure equity in the growing movement. It lays out how urban agriculture can improve access to healthier food through innovative distribution, processing, and marketing efforts; improve economic health by creating jobs, attracting new business, and creating savings for families; and improve community health by using vacant or underused urban spaces to create safe, clean outdoor spaces for people to gather.
Robert Hickey, Jeffrey Lubell, Peter Haas and Stephanie Morse
The Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s new report by Robert Hickey and Jeffrey Lubell measures how combined housing and transportation costs burden moderate-income households.Looking at the 25 largest metro areas in the United States and using newly available data, the report finds that the problem has not only gotten worse in the last decade but also that moderate-income households are disproportionately saddled by these heavier costs. Notably, transportation costs vary greatly and influence the overall affordability of metro areas significantly. Moderate-income homeowners also carry heavier cost burden than renters. The report offers policy implications of these trends and highlight promising approaches available to local and state governments that help make the combined costs of place more manageable for moderate-income.
In this report, Reconnecting America focuses on creating complete communities – places where people can live, work, move, and thrive in a healthier, more equitable, and more economically competitive way — and identifies opportunity areas — the places within our cities and regions where we can get a jump-start on this vision.Rating all 366 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas based on indicators in four categories: Living, Working, Moving and Thriving, the authors offer examples of successful policies and strategies for “completing” communities — from zoning changes and suburban retrofits to community benefits agreements.
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy’s (COWS) latest report is the third in a series that looks at what works (and what does not) in the green economy. Author Sarah White argues for a more coherent, cross-sectoral and broad-based approach to developing human capital and greening community economic development that is driven by equity, democratic participation, and sustainability. After reviewing the current gloomy realities of green politics, the report offers a number of possible interventions — highlighting best practices and lessons learned — that bring together workers, employers, industry and training systems in and out of typical clean energy sectors.
