Blog

August

2019

12

Grappling with the Past, Imagining the Future: A Recap of our 2019 Workshop Series

Over the past two months, leaders and organizers from more than 20 NYC community groups came together to learn about pressing economic justice issues and strategies for change. Our five workshops explored topics ranging from the history of redlining in New York to envisioning an economy free from sexism and patriarchy. Feel like you missed out? Read on for a recap of our 2019 New Economy Workshop Series!

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March

2019

29

How Financial Co-ops Are Helping Puerto Rico Rebuild — and Why It Matters for New York

New Economy Project recently sat down with Pablo DeFilippi and Rene Vargas Martinez from Inclusiv to learn about their work supporting financial cooperatives (or “cooperativas”) in Puerto Rico. While mainstream banks have been widely criticized for abandoning the Island or profiting off disaster, the cooperativas have been central to Puerto Rico’s resilience and recovery. The […]

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November

2018

19

Penalties on the Dollar

This month, the New York Times reported on the lack of enforcement activity at the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department, showing yet another way corporations engaged in various forms of malfeasance get a free pass from the Trump administration.

Same goes for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where enforcement actions have all but screeched to a halt.

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September

2018

4

Barcelona’s Commissioner for Cooperative Economics visits New Economy Project

On August 3, 2018, nearly two dozen people from NYC community organizing and cooperative development organizations packed into our conference room for an engaging lunch discussion with Álvaro Porro, Social Economy Commissioner for the City of Barcelona. Barcelona’s story presents a powerful model for New York City, and we were eager for this extended opportunity to hear about his work.

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August

2018

7

Who Approved That?

One day, Kenneth Lovell went to a local electronics store to buy a transistor radio. He left the store more than $17,000 in debt, with three bank credit cards issued in his name. How did this happen? Listen to Kenneth and his brother Patrick Lovell tell their story.

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August

2018

6

No More, Encore

This spring, New Economy Project attended Encore Capital’s annual shareholder meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Three members of our legal team, Eve Weissman, Susan Shin, and Nick Loh, went to the shareholder meeting to call out ways that Encore, among the country’s largest debt buying companies, harms New Yorkers.

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May

2018

24

Albany Drops the Ball on Community Development

A lot has been written about the shortcomings of New York’s recently-passed state budget. The upshot: New York’s electeds missed the clear opportunity to take decisive action against Trumpism and to protect communities under attack. A glaring example of this failure of leadership is the decision, yet again, not to fund a widely-supported program that invests in low-income communities and communities of color: the state’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund.

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