With this article, we conclude NPQ’s series Solidarity Economies: Building Community Power. Coproduced with the New Economy Coalition—a coalition of over 100 organizations building the solidarity economy in the United States—this series highlights case studies of solidarity economy ecosystems that are returning wealth and building grassroots power in cities across the country.
Spanish language version, translated by María Luisa Rosal and edited by Lila Arnaud, members of the BanchaLenguas Language Justice Collective is available here. Versión en español, traducido por María Luisa Rosal y eidtado por Lila Arnaud, integrantes de la Colective de justicia de lenguaje BanchaLenguas está acesible aquí).
Social movements must push to (re)claim ownership and control of land and economic resources for ordinary people—not mega-corporations and the wealthy few. Without this, there is no empowering the poor and working-class Black, Latine1, and Indigenous people, no equitable treatment for queer and trans people, and no worker solidarity and ecological sustainability. At Beloved Community Incubator (BCI), we believe we can move toward this vision of the world by building a regional solidarity economy in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia Region (the “DMV”).2
In 2016, BCI began through a neighborhood-based participatory action research process spanning hundreds of conversations. In these initial conversations, community members named worker rights violations and a desire to have more control over their own labor as their top concerns. BCI leaned into supporting neighbors and incubated our first co-op, Dulce Hogar (Sweet Home), beginning in 2018. As the region’s only Latina-owned cleaning coop, in five short years, Dulce Hogar has steadily increased earnings and pays wages that fall within the top ninetieth percentile of their industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted our organizational focus toward solidarity economy ecosystem organizing. Over the past three years, the BCI network has grown to over a dozen co-ops and social justice organizations in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, representing more than 200 regional workers. How we have done so has required a multifaceted approach that combines deep organizing with legal and technical assistance, financing, and coalitions with other movement groups.