WKSU News: Worker coops in Cleveland to build wealth for inner-city residents

Evergreen Laundry is the first of of several cooperative ventures in University Circle

WKSU's Karen Schaefer reports

Chuck Miller from Doty Miller Architects and manager Dick Szczepinski in front of the new Evergreen Laundry, a for-profit cooperative venture in Cleveland's Glenville Neighborhood


	Reporter Karen Schaefer

A group of Cleveland non-profits is backing a socially-conscious, eco-development in an inner-city neighborhood. They hope the environmentally-friendly workers cooperative will help build wealth for impoverished residents.

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Demolition at the building where the new laundry is being built started in April - Szczepinski says the laundry will open in late July or early August

Lillian Kuri of the Cleveland Foundation says as part of its efforts to revitalize the University Circle area, the foundation wanted to extend the economic health of institutions like the Cleveland Clinic into surrounding poor neighborhods. A workers cooperative was their choice to build wealth for residents

Cleveland Foundation consultant Ted Howard says in the three neighborhoods around University Circle, the average household income is less than 18-thousand dollars. And he believes the traditional model for building wealth for poor people - home ownership - is broken due to the mortagage foreclosure crisis

Jim Anderson with the Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State University tells about 40-prospective worker-owners that a cooperative model is fundamentally different from most for-profit businesses and will require that everyone work together for the common good

Listener Comments:

Karen, just an incredible story, interesting, uplifting and all delivered in your typically comprehensive fashion. Take a bow!

Posted by: John Ettorre (Cleveland) on June 24, 2009 11:21AM

Yes - Towards Employment has been assisting with pre-screening of employee-owner applicants and will be working with those who are hired on employment skills training.

Posted by: Karen Schaefer (WKSU) on May 28, 2009 3:06PM

Isn't Towards Employment involved in this?

Posted by: Anonymous on May 28, 2009 3:04PM

This is great news. We posted the story to our website: www.jasecon.org. In the San Francisco Bay area we have a network of over 30 co-ops. Learn more about it at: www.nobawc.org.

Posted by: Bernard (Berkeley, CA) on May 28, 2009 12:03AM

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