By Juliana Broad with the Next System Project

Excerpt: Recent pro-cooperative policy changes in Berkeley, California have given rise to what could be heralded as a new “Berkeley Model” of cooperative economic development. In February, the city council unanimously adopted a set of recommendations that will support the development of worker co-ops in the city. The city council’s resolutions include giving worker co-ops preference for city contracts, providing technical assistance for existing small businesses to convert into worker co-ops, and implementing a workaround so that worker co-ops can access the city’s revolving loan fund.

The council’s workaround deserves some attention. Revolving loan funds are pools of money sustained by the U.S. Economic Development Administration that can be extended as lines of credit to businesses that have been turned down by loans elsewhere (for example, by “risk-averse” private banks). Like most small-business lenders, revolving loan funds normally require an individual associated with the business to personally guarantee to repay the loan if the business defaults. Rather tellingly, this requirement is at odds with the multiple-owner model of a worker co-op. The Berkeley City Council’s innovation—developed in conjunction with the Oakland-based Sustainable Economies Law Center—makes it easier for worker co-ops to access these loans by adding an alternative to the conventional individual guarantee. Given that there are more than 500 other revolving loan funds across the country, there will be plenty of opportunities to replicate and build off of the framework established with the “Berkeley Model.”

Read the full article here.

(Originally published December 19, 2019.)

By Jade Yamazaki Stewart of Oakland Magazine

Excerpt: [East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative's] organization uses cooperative ownership models to turn tenants into owners and give them the opportunity to build equity and intergenerational wealth. It’s part of a larger movement to make housing affordable one property at a time. In the Bay Area, the Oakland Community Land Trust, the Bay Area Community Land Trust, and the Northern California Community Land Trust are all buying properties and turning them into affordable housing. But the East Bay co-op’s funding and ownership model is unique.

Tia Taruc-Myers and her husband had been living in a North Oakland fourplex on 61st Street off of Martin Luther King Jr. Way since 2008. Although she had an absentee landlord, rent stayed at around $460 per room, so she didn’t complain. Then, last summer, the landlord painted the building a color Taruc-Myers describes as “gentrifier gray” and put it up for sale. “We were really scared when we heard the building was going to be sold,” she said. “We felt that we were definitely going to lose our home.” So Taruc-Myers reached out to the co-op's Executive Director Noni Session, and she eventually agreed to take on the property as its first project, to be known as Co-op 789.

Read the full article here.

(Originally published October 2, 2019.)

By Subin Devar, Director of the Law Center's Community Renewable Energy Program

A just transition presents the opportunity to address the social inequity underpinning the existing extractive economy and in its place build a fair and sustainable society. Leaders in the environmental and climate justice spaces have developed frameworks and advocacy tools to move the conversation forward. Yet, as it is currently playing out, the transition is neither happening rapidly enough, nor are state renewable energy laws and regulations adequately centering equity. A key gap that local communities, regional networks, and national advocates have identified is the need for law and policy resources in the drafting of equitable renewable energy legislation and regulations in support of the broader movement. 

We put together a short list of ways to make your Thanksgiving a day of economic and racial justice:

By Tracy Bindel, Law Center Intern

How Spirituality & Economic Democracy Can Weave Communities Together

For the first two weeks of June 2019, I attended an institute at the Underground Seminary studying a Post-Colonial Survey of the Bible at the Church of All Nations (CAN) outside of Minneapolis, MN. What is the connection between the study of law and Underground Seminary? I’m glad you asked. Most seminaries do not have a lot of overlap with us at the Sustainable Economies Law Center. However, the Underground Seminary was a glimpse into a community that is pushing the edges of what it means to live in sustainable mutual relationship with each other, the land, and the planet.

By Oscar Perry Abello of Next City

Excerpt: The Sustainable Economies Law Center supported worker cooperative members to participate in the local policy-making process that eventually led to the changes to Berkeley’s small business loan fund in September. The center’s “policy brigade” initiative brought together a group of worker co-op members into a yearlong cohort, providing hands-on experience in policy advocacy work.

Read the full article here.

(Originally published November 19, 2019.)

By NCBA CLUSA

Excerpt: In a unanimous vote last week, the Santa Clara City Council adopted recommendations put forward by the Committee on Economic Development, Communications and Marketing to advance worker cooperative development in the community. The motion to move the worker co-op effort forward was led by Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor.

Read the full article here.

(Originally published November 5, 2019.)

From the Office of Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin

BERKELEY, CA (September 25, 2019) — Businesses that are at risk of closure because their owner is retiring or putting the business up for sale are now eligible for the City’s Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) for the purpose of converting them into worker cooperatives, thanks to a unanimous vote of the Berkeley City Council last night revising the RLF policy. This will help the workers acquire and democratically own and operate the business, keeping it rooted in Berkeley and elevating the jobs and wealth-building opportunities provided to its employees.

“Worker cooperatives are an essential part of our city’s economy and by helping lift them up we can develop new opportunities to promote these unique Berkeley institutions” said Mayor Jesse Arreguín. Arreguín has long championed worker cooperatives, introducing a package of reforms in 2016 as a Councilmember to promote and support worker cooperatives.

Guest Post by Samira Seraji, Third-Year Law Student at UC Berkeley School of Law

Dozens of community lawyers and organizers joined the Sustainable Economies Law Center on Friday, October 11 for their 2nd Annual Social Enterprise Law MCLE Seminar. Nearly 100 participants, including lawyers and non-lawyers, attended the day-long event, which capped the Law Center’s #PeoplePoweredLaw fundraising campaign.

Janelle Orsi, Executive Director of the Law Center, presenting at the 2nd Annual Social Enterprise Law Seminar.

by James Rainey, Los Angeles Times

Excerpt: “Part of what we will need to turn things around in this world is to have people become really dedicated and affectionate land stewards,” said Janelle Orsi, founder and executive director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.

Orsi’s public interest firm is crafting the “justice easements” to lock in affordability. Like agricultural easements designed to preserve farmland, the justice easements will designate housing as the only appropriate land use, with an additional requirement — that future rent increases be limited to, for instance, hikes in the consumer price index.

Read the full article here.

(Originally published October 21, 2019.)

By Sara Stephens, Law Center Staff Attorney

Last Tuesday, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved amendments to its Revolving Loan Fund (“RLF”) Administrative Plan, recommended by the Sustainable Economies Law Center (“Law Center”). Perhaps most critical was a set of changes to the personal guarantee requirement. Cooperatives are often unable to access loan funding due to the requirement that a single member, or all members, provide a personal guarantee for the full amount of the loan, for the life of the loan. Such a requirement is not compatible with a collective ownership structure, where no single member owns a majority of the assets, where members may come and go more frequently than conventional business owners, and where members often come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

From the Office of Mayor Jesse Arreguin

(Berkeley, CA) – Businesses that are at risk of closure because their owner is retiring or putting the business up for sale are now eligible for the City’s Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) for the purpose of converting them into worker cooperatives, thanks to a unanimous vote of the Berkeley City Council last night revising the RLF policy. This will help the workers acquire and democratically own and operate the business, keeping it rooted in Berkeley and elevating the jobs and wealth-building opportunities provided to its employees.

...The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) worked with Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development on the latest proposal. This comes after a report by Project Equity revealed that half of business owners in the United States are considering transitioning within the next five years, with 85% having no succession plan, and a third planning to close down altogether.

“The changes the Council have adopted will make it possible for more workers to become owners of the companies they helped build, elevating the quality of their jobs and saving businesses from closure” said Sara Stephens, Housing and Cooperatives Attorney for the SELC. “These amendments will certainly prove widely influential, as cities around the country are looking to Berkeley as a model for how cities can prioritize worker cooperatives and more equitable local economies."

Read the full article here.

(Originally published September 26, 2019.)

By Zach Haber, Post News Group

Excerpt: The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) is working to keep Black, indigenous, people of color and allied communities in the East Bay by communally purchasing and sustaining land and housing with local residents.

“The critical part of our project is that we take land and housing permanently off the speculative market,” said EB PREC’s Executive Director and third-generation West Oakland resident Noni Session. She, along with six other local residents, form the Black led and POC majority staff of EB PREC, and the growing cooperative currently has more than 125 other non-staff members including resident owners and investors.

In an interview with The Oakland Post, Session explained how EB PREC is replacing landlords with resident owners and investors who are driven by the desire to sustain the community as opposed to make money.

Read the full article here.

(Originally published September 19, 2019.)

Excerpt: “Community control of land” sounds straightforward, but in practice it can be limited, fleeting, or difficult to achieve due to high property costs and the social, legal, and financial challenges of collectivizing property ownership.

Recognizing these challenges with independent housing cooperatives and the shortcomings of the CLT model, new visionaries are developing community-funded models for land ownership, like the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative and the Community Land Cooperative in development by Ecovillagers Alliance.

Read the full article here.

(Originally published August 30, 2019.)