When tenants at the Caroline Street apartment building got notified that the owner was selling the property, they quickly began organizing and formed a tenant association. Within months, the association formed a housing cooperative and after a year, with assistance from several organizations, managed to purchase their building. Andrew Oliphant writes about how they put the pieces together to make the $4.8M purchase.
Then, Dave Boehnlein hosts a virtual tour of Rooted Northwest, an "agrivillage" currently being developed in Western Washington. The nascent community initially organized around saving a piece farmland from rampant suburban development. The group is planning a compact, high density neighborhood that will preserve over 93% of the farmland and forest on the property, as well as a common buildings and outdoor spaces.
Tenants Take Ownership of their Building and Run it as a Cooperative
by Andrew Oliphant
“This has been the fun part; coming up with our repair plan and fixing things in people's units that they had been asking for for years under the previous landlord," Power says. “It's empowering for people who live in the building to actually see the results and see how quickly we can get things done when we actually have control ourselves and have the budget to do so.”
A Virtual Tour of Rooted Northwest
by Foundation for Intentional Community
Rooted NW is a residential community in western Washington designed for healthy living, connecting with nature and one another, and member-run microenterprises, all within the context of the permaculture ethics of earth care, people care, and fair shares.
Congratulations to Detroit People’s Food Co-op for winning Startup of the Year!
Food Co-op Initiative — Detroit People’s Food Co-op met *all* of the award criteria through: -Incredible community engagement and visibility in the community that resulted in 4,000 owners by opening day, with nearly 1,000 of those becoming members in the weeks leading up to opening; -Business planning that leaned heavily into expert retail grocery resources and consulting, while also challenging these partners to develop methods and processes that better serve historically red-lined and other communities that have been systemically excluded.
Northgate Greenhouses transitions to worker-owned model
WVXU — A beloved Cincinnati-area greenhouse is transitioning to a new form of ownership to keep the business growing. Our Harvest Cooperative recently purchased Northgate Greenhouses and started making the switch to a worker-owned model. The change began last spring, when longtime owner Kathie Hogeback decided to sell her business...After the Hogebacks and their broker put Northgate Greenhouses on the market, local farm co-op, Our Harvest Cooperative, was one of the first potential buyers to express interest in the business and the property...
Building a Solidarity Economy in Indonesia: Peasant Cooperatives and Urban Poor Unite
Via Campesina — Early June, eight tonnes of agroecological rice—grown by the SPI-affiliated Peasant Cooperative (Koperasi Petani Indonesia/KPI) in Indramayu—were shipped to the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) Cooperative in Kampung Susun Akuarium, North Jakarta. The cooperative serves around 5,000 households across 26 villages in the Jakarta area...
Wealth Redistribution and the Law
Sustainable Economies Law Center (YouTube) — In particular, what are the legal and tax considerations of people and foundations voluntarily gifting their wealth? What are considerations for people and organizations receiving that wealth? Our goal is for wealth to flow without legal barriers and in the spirit of solidarity, not charity. Far too often, professionals like lawyers, financial planners, and foundation leaders misunderstand the law, causing unnecessary blockages to redistribution. We've done our best to give a broad overview of the legal terrain and the various resources we’ve created on these topics, helping dispel some myths while we’re at it...
The role of community mutual aid networks and social relationship capital in household financial vulnerability
Nature — Using panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS, 2010–2020) comprising 11,029 household-year observations, this study applies instrumental variable estimation with fixed effects to analyze the impact of community mutual aid networks and social relationship capital on household financial vulnerability. The results reveal that these networks and social relationship capital significantly reduce household financial vulnerability. However, the magnitude of this effect exhibits notable heterogeneity across regions...
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