Cleveland's Evergreen Cooperatives: Update

The best-known project to support the development of worker cooperatives as a way to rejuvenate disadvantaged neighborhoods is the Evergreen cooperative project. Politico's Keith Epstein wrote an extensive update that explores both the successes and challenges the project has faced to date. The initiative, which aims to create worker cooperatives in Cleveland's six most challenged neighborhoods, is now in its 10th year. The article cites the experience of Lakeisha Jeffries. Jeffries has frequently been unemployed, lived on food stamps, and depended on friends and family, but now "she is a crew chief for a worker-owned cooperative in which she owns an equity stake, from which she receives health insurance, and through which she may soon buy a subsidized home of her own."