David Riley

@rilzd

Mayor Lovely Warren wants to push forward with a plan to launch a network of businesses owned and operated by their workers — an idea meant to help build wealth and create jobs in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Warren said Tuesday that creating these for-profit, cooperatively-owned businesses will complement other anti-poverty work planned on the east side of the city this year.

City officials have been working with a consultant, the Democracy Collaborative, for about a year on this plan. The consultant has done similar work in Cleveland and other cities.

Warren plans to ask City Council next month for $150,000 to keep working with the collaborative and start carrying out a co-op plan this year. City Council approved an initial $100,000 for the co-op project about a year ago.

To fight poverty, city eyes co-op businesses

Here's the basic idea: To establish neighborhood businesses that provide goods and services to major anchor institutions like the University of Rochester or Rochester Regional Health Systems. Options might include a greenhouse and food-processing facility for university cafeterias or a business that helps make hospital buildings more energy efficient.

Workers who stick around long enough would be able to get a share of ownership. As a result, they would share in the profits, too — a way to build wealth and help keep the business' profits local.

Local Green Party candidates have pitched similar ideas in the past, and there are some cooperatives already in the city, including Abundance Cooperative Market.

"It's about what's going to provide job opportunities for individuals who live in our community, especially the most challenged communities that we have," Warren said. "Being able to give them the ability to take care of themselves and earn a living wage and take care of their families is what we would be looking to promote."

An initial report from the Democracy Collaborative said it could take up to $1.3 million over three years to get the program up and running, which might be funded through a combination of city, state and private foundation funds.

The city probably will focus its co-op plan on the east-side neighborhoods of Marketview Heights, Beechwood and EMMA, according to Henry Fitts, the city's director of innovation.

Warren wants to see if the co-op plan can employ enough people to lower the poverty rate in that area by a single percentage point in one year. If so, the city would look to expand to other neighborhoods.

$1.9M innovation grant to help city tackle poverty

The Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative plans to focus some of its efforts in the same neighborhoods this year, Warren said. Community leaders in Beechwood and EMMA also hope to partner with a national nonprofit on a major neighborhood revitalization effort this year.

Next steps include establishing a nonprofit holding company that would oversee the new companies and manage a revolving loan fund for them, according to Fitts. The city has informal commitments from several major institutions to work with the co-ops — now it needs to firm up those agreements.

The city also will look to start fleshing out business and funding plans, with hopes of launching the first cooperative by January 2017.

DRILEY@Gannett.com

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