Re: Harnessing the poverty-fighting power of public institutions, Aug. 24

Posted on August 31, 2015 in Policy Context

—

TheStar.com – Opinion/Readers’ Letters
Aug 30 2015.   Larry Gordon

It is encouraging to see community leaders in Toronto looking at the Cleveland model for community economic development.

Funneling a portion of large public institution spending to local businesses that create jobs for marginalized communities could be a game-changer. But a key element of the Cleveland model seems to be getting little attention in Toronto.

In Cleveland, a number of employee-owned co-operative enterprises were formed to provide services to the universities, hospitals and other community agencies. The co-op enterprise model not only provides jobs, but gives employees an ownership stake, equity and a share of the profits.

Studies have shown co-op enterprises have a much higher survival rate than traditional investor-owned forms of business, which is a common-sense outcome since the stakeholders have an direct ownership interest.

Toronto should learn from and adopt the Cleveland model, including the key element of employee-owned co-ops.

Larry Gordon, Toronto

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2015/08/30/government-funding-is-key.html >

Tags: , , , ,

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2015 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Policy Context. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply