As all eyes turn to the presidential election, many transportation equity advocates are setting their sights on more local battles, where city and county ballot measures are offering key opportunities to invest in more equitable transportation systems.

Though both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have come out in support of overhauling the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, this is no guarantee of an influx of federal transportation spending.  As Gabrielle Gurley noted in The American Prospect, “the person moving into the Oval Office may actually matter less than who gets new digs on Capitol Hill,” considering the sizeable challenge that Congress’s austerity politics have posed to local leaders desperate to address infrastructure issues in their jurisdictions.

As Washington politics fail to move on the rebuilding America’s infrastructure, advocates and local governments have had to find local means to meet their transportation needs, resulting in dozens of transit-related ballot initiatives in cities and counties across the country. Transit-related ballot initiatives have an impressive success rate (in 2015, 7 in 10 proposed ballot measures passed) and because they require a public vote, they are a powerful method for communities to create direct policy change on issues that elected officials might otherwise shy away from — such as raising revenue through increased taxes or tackling politically controversial topics. 

For example, in Atlanta, Mayor Kasim Reed and local advocates succeeded in getting a proposed half-penny sales tax to fund transportation on the November 2016 ballot. If Atlanta voters pass this ballot initiative, SB 369, it will generate at least $2.5 billion in revenue over the next 40 years, funding the largest expansion of the regional transit system, MARTA, in its history. This potential expansion opens doors for equity advocates in Atlanta to advocate for a more equitable and inclusive transit system.

“You can’t talk about public transit in Atlanta without also understanding the history of structural racism and the built environment,” says Nathaniel Smith, Founder and Chief Equity Officer at the Partnership for Southern Equity. “We need policies that minimize displacement and gentrification and expand transit to communities that have been left behind.”

The Partnership is working in coalition with the Transformation Alliance to advocate for the development of a revolving loan fund that will take $200 million of the $2.5 billion to provide grants for equitable transit development around MARTA stations. 

A similar opportunity to expand transit is taking place in Seattle, where local advocates are asking voters to approve a measure that would raise $54 billion dollars over a 25-year period to regionalize the current mass transit system of light rail, commuter rail, and bus services. Puget Sound Sage, which works for equitable and sustainable solutions to the regions problems, has mobilized a coalition of community members that helped put language into the ballot that enables measures to address potential displacement and meet the needs of low-income communities and communities of color. For example, the ballot now includes a mandate for transit agencies to dedicate 80 percent of their surplus properties as affordable housing, a light rail stop in previously overlooked neighborhood, and a revolving loan fund for acquiring property near transit stations for affordable housing and family-owned businesses.

In the Bay Area, TransForm, which advocates for equitable transportation solutions, has had to contend with ongoing tension between expanding the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system to serve primarily wealthier suburban communities and channeling transportation funding to meet the needs of low-income communities and communities of color. Their focus has gained new urgency with the upcoming $3.5 billion bond measure that voters in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties will vote on in November. TransForm has worked to ensure that this ballot measure focused improving and expanding service on the core system as opposed to funding more expensive suburban expansions.

These three measures are just a few examples of the 34 ballot initiatives that transportation advocates across 13 states are working on — from bus expansion in Southeast Michigan to a new regional transit plan for Wake County, N.C. Given the high success rate of transit ballot initiatives and the strong community engagement that has driven these campaigns thus far, these referenda offer significant opportunities to move the needle on transportation equity, regardless of who moves into the White House in January.

Benefit corporations provide a way for businesses to make profit without having to slash wages or resort to environmentally destructive practices. Ben & Jerry's, for instance, is one of the world's most popular ice cream brands with an annual sales revenue of $132 million. Its lowest-paid worker makes $16.13 an hour, which is 46 percent above the living wage in home state Vermont, and the company offsets more than 50 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions. More than 40 percent of the board and management are from underrepresented populations, such as women, people of color, lower-income individuals, and people with disabilities.

In a time when U.S. corporate profits are soaring but wages remain stagnant, Ben & Jerry's and hundreds of other companies, including Cooperative Home Care Associates profiled below, are choosing an alternative business model – benefit corporations – driven not just by profits but also by fair working conditions, diverse leadership, and environmentally sustainable practice.

One of the fundamental challenges to growing more "triple bottom line" businesses is the legal requirement to maximize profits that applies to corporations. Anything that takes away from profits, such as higher wages or more sustainable environmental practices, leaves the corporation vulnerable to being sued by its shareholders. This limitation hinders companies from advancing any values beyond profit making.

In response to this limitation, a movement was started to pass legislation allowing for a new type of corporate entity called the benefit corporation. The benefit corporation provides legal protection for businesses that choose to treat their workers well, protect the environment, and invest in their communities, even if it means their annual profits are not as high. As of 2013, 19 states plus the District of Columbia passed benefit corporation legislation, including Delaware, which is home to 50 percent of all publicly traded companies and 64 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

In 2012, Ben & Jerry's took a step beyond being a benefit corporation and became a Certified B Corporation, as conferred by a nonprofit organization called B Lab. There are currently more than 1,000 registered B Corps. A Certified B Corp voluntarily meets higher standards of governance, workforce treatment, environmental impact, and community involvement. Companies must score at least 80 points on a scale of 200 to be eligible for certification.

Certified B Corps are part of a community of socially responsible companies and span a large spectrum of goods and services. In 2012, Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the Bronx, New York, became the first home care company to become a Certified B Corp. Their overall B Score, at 154, is nearly twice the median score.

One of the reasons CHCA scores so high in the B Impact Assessment is because it is a worker-owned cooperative with the vast majority of the workers and worker-owners being from the Bronx. In an industry where good-paying jobs are hard to come by, CHCA deliberately chose a different business model, one that prioritizes workers over profits, and has flourished for nearly 30 years. The company has grown from 12 people to now over 2,000 employees, 70 percent of whom are worker-owners.

"When we started, a lot of for-profit home-care companies were established and were seen as a way of making a lot of money in a short time," said Michael Elsas, president of CHCA. "You didn't have to pay workers that much, you didn't have to train them that well, and you could move in and make a killing. And, in that environment we wanted to establish something a little different, more socially responsible."

Treating the workers well was not just a social mission, but it made good business sense. Elsas said, "Many of the people we were seeing were women, particularly women of color. The thought was if we train people longer and really spend time with them, if we prepare them for an entry-level position and get them ready to work and remove those barriers to work, and, if we provided a lot of support for those workers both before and after they were trained by us, we could create quality, full-time jobs. And then as a result of that quality job, we would be providing quality care that we could, in fact, provide better services."

CHCA has been a co-op since the company started in 1985. Going from a co-op model to also certifying as a B Corp was an easy decision and made a lot of business sense, Elsas said. "Distinguishing ourselves as a B Corp would be helpful in marketing to be able to say we are the only B-Corp certified home care company. We thought that would be helpful for those entities that want to do business with a B Corp. Quite honestly, it was a natural for us. There was very little that we had to do to get certified because we were already a worker-owned company, we already had everything in place."

Elsas said that CHCA is successful not because it is a co-op but because of the best practices they employ. Currently, 90 cents of every dollar that comes into the company goes to the worker. While paying workers less would result in higher profits and better dividends, Elsas said higher dividends is not what has made the company successful for 30 years. Instead, what makes CHCA successful is "how we train, how we supervise people, how we respect people, how we let people participate in what we do."

Companies like CHCA and Ben & Jerry's show that businesses can make a profit and embrace socially responsible practices. Higher wages and better work environments help working families reach economic security. Consumers can support B Corps and environmentally and socially conscious businesses by buying their products and services. A full list of B Corps can be found here.

In Milwaukee, one in eight renters — disproportionately people of color — are evicted every two years, and this alarming trend is playing out across the country. In his eye-opening new book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond documents the devastating consequences for families, communities, and the nation. He argues that housing security must be part of a policy agenda to eliminate poverty and build an economy that works for all.

Desmond, a sociologist and urban ethnographer, spoke with Kalima Rose, senior director of the PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity and co-author of Healthy Communities of Opportunity: An Equity Blueprint to Address America’s Housing Challenges. This report, released today by PolicyLink and The Kresge Foundation, explains how health, housing, and economic security policies must be aligned to achieve equitable housing outcomes.

Q: How widespread is eviction and who is most affected?

A: In Milwaukee, if you look at only formal court-ordered evictions, you learn that about 16,000 people are evicted every year in that city. That’s about 40 people every day. We’ve crunched court-ordered eviction numbers in other cities, and Milwaukee is no outlier. New York processes about 60 marshal evictions every single day.

These numbers are startling and very troubling, but these are just court-ordered evictions. If you add landlord foreclosures and building condemnations, then you learn that every two years about one in eight renters in the city of Milwaukee is evicted. Mothers in low-income African American communities, in particular, are evicted at incredibly high rates. Among Milwaukee renters, about one in five Black women report being evicted versus one in 15 White women. This is a nationwide epidemic.

Q: Why do evictions hit families with children especially hard?

A: Children often are the reason families get evicted. When I started this work, I thought that having kids would shield you from eviction. But families living with kids have three times the odds of receiving an eviction judgment in eviction court, even controlling for arrears. What you’re seeing in that discrepancy is the landlord’s discretion. Some landlords are choosing not to work with families with children — because children can be hard on the landlord’s bottom line. Then kids often prolong the time you're homeless after your eviction because family discrimination is still real. I saw families get turned away quite a bit for having kids.

If we want to give children a fighting chance to realize their full potential, we have to provide them stable, affordable housing. You don’t just lose your home when you're evicted. You often lose your school and your community and your possessions. This massive instability has broad-reaching consequences.

Q:  You write that eviction impacts African American women in the same way that criminal conviction impacts African American men. Explain the parallels.

A: We know that when you get out of prison and you have a criminal record, it can really affect your life. It can affect your success in the job market and your access to certain forms of public aid. An eviction record works the same way. It can bar you from receiving public housing, which means we’re still systematically denying housing help to people that most need it. It can bar you from accessing a decent place to live in a safe neighborhood, because many landlords turn away families with a recent eviction. There’s a kind of gender discrepancy that mirrors incarceration.

There’s also a policy story where they move in lock step. We have had massive investment in public housing over the last three decades, but it’s been in the form of prisons. Some governors reallocated money for public housing to build more prisons. So there are more connections than one would think that link mass incarceration and the lack of affordable housing. 

Q: Your book draws distinct pictures of neighborhoods — from trailer parks to White, Black, or Latino enclaves in Milwaukee. What are the forces driving segregation in the city?

A:  The White folks I spent time with that were evicted from a trailer park didn’t even consider moving to the North Side of the city, the predominantly African American inner city. But even though they amputated a large section of the city from their possibilities, they still had an easier time finding housing than the African American folks that I spent time with. It’s a story about the salience of discrimination. It’s a story about how race still matters, even at the very bottom of the market.

Q. What does this mean for building strong communities of opportunity?

A: Unless we provide families a shot at investing in a community, it’s going to be really hard for them to make a difference on their own streets and their own blocks. There are some neighborhoods in Milwaukee that have a 10 percent or 15 percent eviction rate. Those conditions turn neighbors into strangers. They disrupt the social fabric of neighborhoods. We know from previous research that if neighbors get together and work hard on local issues they can make a huge difference. Programs to stabilize housing would stabilize communities, too.

Q: What policy action would you like to see at the federal level?

A: There needs to be more attention paid to the role that housing is playing in poverty. When most politicians on either side of the aisle are asked about what to do about inequality or poverty in the United States, they usually start with a focus on jobs. That’s only part of the solution though. I don’t think we can fix poverty if we don’t fix housing.

Eviction is not just a condition of poverty, it’s a cause of it. It’s linked to job loss, mental health issues, school instability, loss of possessions, homelessness, and moving into worse neighborhoods. It’s fundamentally recasting people’s lives in a more difficult way. But we also have to ask ourselves a question about who are we as a nation that allows this level of inequality, this level of blunting of human capacity, and this degree of social suffering. I don’t think there’s any American value that justifies this situation.

Visit Just Shelter, an organization started by Desmond, to learn about the work of community organizations fighting to prevent eviction, preserve affordable housing, and prevent family homelessness.

Today, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick B. Garland to be the 113th justice of the United States Supreme Court.  By all accounts, Mr. Garland is an outstanding candidate.  He had a stellar career as a lawyer, both in the public and private sectors, and serves as the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, perhaps the most prestigious and celebrated federal appeals court in the country.  And in 1997, he received bipartisan support for his appointment to the DC Circuit.

Yet, if we are to believe what we have seen and heard starting just 15 minutes after Justice Antonin Scalia’s untimely death was announced, Mr. Garland will not be confirmed.  Indeed, he will not even get a hearing.  That a candidate as accomplished as Mr. Garland will not be allowed to make a case to the American public that he is the right person for the job and that he will protect the rights and liberty of all people living in this country, is an undeniably glaring signal of how dispiritingly broken and dysfunctional our politics have become.

Of course, there is more at stake with this nomination than the functioning of our political system.  Critically important cases, whose resolution could undermine efforts to advance equity for low-income communities and community of color, are before the Court.  For example, in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the Court will revisit the constitutionality of affirmative action.  In Evenwel v. Abbott, the Court’s ruling could undermine the political power of minority groups, particularly Latinos.  And at issue in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, is the financial sustainability of unions.  Mr. Garland’s appointment, assuming he is confirmed in a timely manner, could lead to rulings that promote equity in all these cases. 

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states, “[The President] shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and judges of the Supreme Court . . . ."

President Obama has done his job.  It is time for Republicans in the Senate to do theirs.

For Ana Garcia-Ashley, living out the values of her Catholic faith is about more than helping one's neighbor, or caring for those in need — it’s about dismantling systems of oppression and racism that have left so many Americans cut off from opportunity. As executive director of Gamaliel, a national network for faith-based community organizing, Garcia-Ashley has helped engage congregations across the country around a range of political issues — from predatory lending to immigration reform to congressional spending. The first woman of color to lead a national community organizing network, she has brought a relentless activist spirit to the faith-based work of her organization.

Advocating for a more equitable transportation system, both in terms of access to quality transportation and access to jobs in the transportation industry, is a core part of Gamaliel’s work.  Leveraging 44 Gamaliel affiliates in 17 states and the grassroots Transportation Equity Network that includes over 300 community organizations, the organization advocates for transportation as not only a civil right, but a crucial driver of upward mobility — a link bolstered by a recent Harvard study that identified lower commute times as the single strongest predictor of escaping poverty for low-income families. This connection between transit and economic opportunity can also be seen in Gamaliel’s recent work to promote the Department of Transportation’s local and targeted hiring pilot — a one-year initiative launched last March that allows city and state governments to prioritize the employment of local, low-income workers for contracts to build roads, bridges, and transit facilities.

Garcia-Ashley spoke with America’s Tomorrow on the importance of transportation access — a sector of Gamaliel’s work that has taken center stage following the approval of the local and targeted hiring pilot. 

Q: Why is local and targeted hiring important for building opportunity for low-income communities and communities of color?

A: You have these multibillion dollar highway projects that could provide quality jobs with benefits and career pathways into construction jobs. And these projects are often being built in neighborhoods with high unemployment, often that are communities of color. It’s a no-brainer that these projects should be used to have positive impacts on the communities where they’re being built by ensuring that a portion of the construction jobs go to local workers in that community. And we already see that they have been successful when implemented on a local basis. But for decades, there was essentially a moratorium on local hire for federal projects, because unions, developers, and others in construction felt that there wouldn’t be ready labor and it wouldn’t be cost-effective to hire locally. So we were very emotional and excited when, after years of advocating for local hire, Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the pilot of local hire in March. Of course, now it’s up to advocacy groups like PolicyLink and Gamaliel to go into the communities where we have a footprint and ensure that they put this pilot to use, that we document best practices, and show how all the fears about efficiency and cost-effectiveness aren’t actually a problem.

Q: What has been the most crucial element within the organizing that Gamaliel does to promote local hiring?

A: We need community members to be able to talk about these policies and their impact – not just policy wonks. We need to have the housewife, the preacher, the young person being able to talk about local hire and regulations and transportation access — just like they talk about Beyoncé! Young people always seem to know what she’s doing, but not what the Department of Labor is doing — but the DOL affects their lives a lot more. It’s about building awareness and civic-mindedness in the young generation, building these local champions who can talk about what it means to them, what it means to their communities.

Q: Can you give an example of where local hiring as a policy in transportation projects has been a success?

A: In the building of the I-64 bridge in Missouri, advocates were able to get 1 percent of the budget to go into training and hiring single moms and people of color. So they spent $2 million to not only hire locally, but to train people to take on these jobs — and the project came in under budget. We need more opportunities to implement projects like this, and we need to collect data about them to back up their success and make the case for these policies being applied more widely. Then, hopefully, we can institutionalize local hire into all infrastructure projects and maybe expand it to other federally funded projects. We should be using federal money — tax payer funds — to empower all Americans, not hold up a system that oppresses them, that builds highways that divide low-income communities and displace homes, without giving anything back to the people who live there.

Q: A crucial part of Gamaliel’s work is advocating for access to public transportation as a civil rights issue for low-income people and people of color. Why do you view transit access as a civil right?

A: During the Civil Rights movement, advocates were looking at the immediate and urgent ways of gaining basic rights as citizens, but transportation was always a piece of that larger picture. Rosa Parks did not just sit on the bus because she wanted to sit anywhere she wanted on the bus — it was a symbol of the dignity of people of color, the right to have access to the bus, to have a job to go to on that bus. Victories like the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act provided us a platform, and a responsibility to make sure that people can move to opportunity — because the structures of our society were not designed to serve women, people of color, or the poor. Instead, these structures have created and preserved hyper poverty areas where people literally cannot leave their neighborhoods because of lack of transit.

But when we hear transportation, the dominant narrative is always the highways, the two-car garage. This is reflected in a transportation budget that has been so focused on the creation of highways and connectors that have historically destroyed and divided communities — especially communities of color. Countless highways have cut through Black communities, displacing residents and destroying Black businesses. We need to move away from just thinking about highways and cars and start thinking about a transportation system where everyone, no matter how poor or elderly or young you are — you can get where you need to go.  Because equal opportunity includes being able to get to where you need to go without having to spend $10,000 to own a car. That’s why we feel that transportation is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. It’s essential we expand our conceptions of civil rights to include it.

Q: Gamaliel is a faith-based advocacy group — how do you see the issues of the church intersecting with transportation and civil rights?

A: It’s not a connection that everyone makes right away. I still get push back from people — “Why is a faith-based network so obsessed with the Department of Transportation and how highway dollars are spent, and what does that have to do with living out your faith?” But we see transportation and infrastructure as determining the quality of life people can have, and we see public transit as protecting the planet because, for every bus, you're taking hundreds of cars off the road. People want to know where in the scripture it talks about public transit, but the scripture talks about caring for your neighbors, being a steward of the earth, and living in a community that respects the dignity of people — and we see quality, affordable transportation access as central to living up to these values.

“I think my most skillful trait is the ability to pivot,” said Angelica Ross. “I believe that pivoting is a huge skill to have.”

Ross utilized her ability to change direction and forge ahead in every step along her path to become founding CEO of the creative design firm and training academy TransTech Social Enterprises. At the outset of her journey, she was fired from a day job after coming out to her boss and co-workers as a transgender woman. She says that her firing fell in line with a general message from society that transgender lives don’t matter. A 2011 report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 90 percent of those surveyed who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming experienced harassment or mistreatment on the job or took actions to avoid it; 47 percent reported that they had experienced an adverse job outcome such as being fired, not hired, or denied a promotion.

 

“There’s also a message that you’re not valuable,” added Ross, “except for a certain category of value that you have as an entertainer — either as a sex worker, adult film star, or drag queen.” Like many other transgender people looking to support themselves, put themselves through school, or pay for hormones and medical expenses, Ross began working as a model for an adult entertainment website.

Soon, she had the opportunity to work behind the scenes editing and cropping photos and posting content to the website. She taught herself HTML, CSS, content management systems, and more, using Lynda.com. Ross began to realize that she didn’t have to do sex work or work in adult entertainment to make a living. “I began to think, ‘Okay, now I can run my own adult website.’ Eventually, I realized that I didn’t want to run an adult website. I actually just enjoyed building websites, managing clients, and working as a freelancer.”

Over the next 10 years, Ross built and ran her own successful creative design business. In 2013, she decided to get directly involved to help other transgender people find their professional calling and employment pathway, just as she had been able to do. She began working as a career coach and job readiness expert for the Trans Life Center project at the Chicago House and Social Service Agency, where she worked with both trans and cisgender workers — people whose gender identity corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth — “dealing with mental health issues, conviction histories, lack of work histories, trauma, abuse, you name it. Some of the challenges were so big that they got in the way of the work and productivity aspect of the job.”

Pivoting from career coach to broader empowerment

“TransTech emerged as a solution out of the center of that storm,” Ross added. After experiencing frustration with some of the social work aspects of her job, she began brainstorming a different system for capacity building and skills training for trans workers, based more on individual accountability. “It’s not just about getting people a job,” said Ross, “because once you get them a job, they might have a hard time keeping that job depending on what skill sets they have and the types of challenges they have to deal with while on the job.”

Launched in July 2013 in Chicago, TransTech Social Enterprises seeks to empower, educate, and employ trans and gender non-conforming individuals facing barriers in education and in the workplace, as well as to reduce instances of discrimination against them. The organization uses a dual-empowerment model in which trainees learn basic data entry, typing, software, and creative design skills while also working on real, contracted projects with professional clients. Similar to beauty school apprenticeships, clients pay a reduced price in exchange for supporting trainees just developing skills for the first time. Trainees, and anyone from the LGBTQ community, as well as straight and cisgender allies, can become community, professional, or corporate members, gaining access to benefits such as in-person workshops, on-the-job training, and diversity consultations. After an initial pilot program in 2013, TransTech is currently training its second cohort of trainees in Chicago and Washington, DC.

Organizations like TransTech are few and far between considering the vast challenges facing the transgender community. The 2011 survey found that respondents were nearly four times more likely than the general population to have a household income of less than $10,000/year. More than a quarter reported a household income of less than $20,000/year.

Black and Latina trans women face particularly challenging economic circumstances — much of it stemming from the way that institutional discrimination toward people of color, women, LGBTQ, and trans/gender non-conforming individuals overlaps and intersects. “My parents always used to tell us you have to work three or four times harder than White people to get ahead,” said Ross. She often feels like people are standing on the sidelines watching TransTech, waiting for a Black trans woman to fail. “I’m a trans woman of color without a college degree who’s never done these things before, but I’m dedicated, I teach myself, I pick things up quickly, and I’m willing to be the main muscle behind this mission.”

Partnering with the White House

The wins are rolling in. In its first year, TransTech made over $100,000 in creative design sales. In July 2015, Ross was invited to speak at the White House during its first-ever LGBTQ Innovation Tech Summit. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith introduced Ross, recognizing that “amongst and in our community, the trans community faces some of the greatest challenges for inclusion and economic inclusion.”

Since then, Ross has been working with the White House to develop an employment pipeline for trans people to be hired at entry-level positions there. Nonetheless, TransTech is still in search of more supporters and corporate partners.

“Once people started seeing the White House stuff … we have gotten a lot of people saying, ‘Man, that’s so cool. That’s so wonderful,'’’ said Ross. “But there’s still a gap between that and folks actually supporting our mission, whether that is through volunteering, donating, helping us to raise funds, or helping us to see what [we could be doing differently].”

She said that she’s open for TransTech to continue to pivot and evolve; the organization is not designed to operate with a one-size-fits-all approach. The pilot training session taught the staff valuable lessons that helped inform the design of the second year, with the current cohort helping to tailor the program even further.

Ross explained that equity is central to TransTech’s work. “We need for folks to have a fair stake in the game and that looks different for each person,” said Ross. “What we’re trying to communicate to folks about TransTech is that it is a tool that’s reflective of an individual’s value — and what happens when an individual enters into a collective with that value.”

Strong and effective fair housing laws are essential for building prosperity — for people struggling to get by, for local and regional economies that benefit from thriving communities, and for the nation as a whole. That’s why a proposed rule by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is so important. As inequality soars and neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are on the rise in most American cities, the rule would push municipalities to deliver on the promise of fair housing. By helping to connect low-income families to neighborhoods of greater opportunity, the rule has the potential to spur economic growth not only within these households, but within cities and regions.

The rule, due out this summer, is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). It would sharpen the tools that equity advocates and public sector leaders can use to increase investment in high-poverty neighborhoods, fight racial discrimination in the housing market, and add more affordable housing choices in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools, and other essentials. It would do this in three important ways:

(1)  It would make municipalities more accountable to community member needs by requiring resident engagement on fair housing and community development issues.
     
(2)  It would require a data-driven analysis (an "assessment of fair housing") of community conditions and impediments to fair housing, including factors that contribute to areas of racially concentrated poverty and high unemployment (e.g., school performance, transportation access, and toxic exposures).
     
(3)  It would require jurisdictions to tie federal funding — such as Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds — to addressing the fair housing challenges that are identified.

Taken as a whole, the proposed rule would mean that cities, counties, and states must be proactive to ensure all people can live in neighborhoods where they have access to the opportunities and resources we all need to succeed.

This rule is long overdue. It will help turn around the lasting negative impacts of historically discriminatory practices that contributed to the creation of poor neighborhoods of color, and it will reduce barriers that cut millions of Americans off from economic opportunity. This rule can be a powerful tool to advance equitable economic growth for the nation, and here are five reasons how:

(1)  Reducing growth-limiting racial and economic exclusion: Research shows that families living in disinvested and low-income communities have limited economic mobility and reduced future earnings. This effect creates generational cycles of poverty and limited opportunity: For example, two-thirds of Black children raised in the poorest quarter of U.S. neighborhoods a generation ago are now raising their children in similarly poor neighborhoods. This proposed rule has been proven to help direct more investment to neighborhoods that need them and help low-income families move to neighborhoods with more resources. Both the Puget Sound and the Twin Cities regions built off of their fair housing assessments – part of a pilot for the proposed AFFH rule – to focus new infrastructure investment in Native American, African American, African immigrant, Latino and Southeast Asian communities in need of investment. When St. Louis conducted a fair housing assessment, the city found that Housing Choice Vouchers were being used primarily in low-income neighborhoods where there were few jobs and community amenities. This assessment helped the city revamp its program to help residents find diverse housing choices that better met their needs.
     
(2)   Connecting people to job opportunities: By encouraging more job investments in high-unemployment communities and promoting transit investments that connect these communities to jobs elsewhere, this rule would help people previously isolated from employment opportunities better engage in the regional workforce and contribute to local economies. For example, Puget Sound used its fair housing assessment to strategically plan for a new food distribution hub and job incubators within historically disinvested neighborhoods where job growth was needed. And a New Orleans assessment that found transit was not serving late-shift schedules for hospitality and healthcare workers led to realignment of services to better meet low-wage, transit-dependent workers’ needs.
     
(3)  Creating jobs: Places that support the development of quality affordable housing and new infrastructure in disinvested neighborhoods also create new jobs both in the short- and the long-term for communities. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that building 100 affordable homes can lead to the creation of more than 120 jobs during the construction phase and roughly 30 jobs in a wide array of service industries once homes are occupied. When coupled with job training, inclusive hiring and contracting practices, and provisions for good wages and benefits, these jobs can help put low-income and unemployed residents on a pathway to good careers and financial stability.
     
(4)  Attracting new employers: Lack of quality affordable housing that connects to transit makes it more difficult for employers to recruit and retain employees, putting the local economy at a competitive disadvantage. In a national survey of more than 300 companies, 55 percent of large companies reported an insufficient level of affordable housing in their area, and two-thirds of these respondents cited this shortage as negatively affecting their ability to hold onto qualified employees. Other survey data suggests that affordable housing availability plays an important role in where new businesses decide to build or expand their operations. In Boston and Chicago, fair housing assessments helped these cities support new affordable homes around growing job centers in order to attract more employers to the area.
     
(5)  Providing low-income families with more disposable income to invest and save: The disproportionate housing burden on low-income communities and communities of color makes it hard for them to save for emergencies, make long-term investments, or spend money within the local economy on necessary goods and services. Affordable rent and mortgage payments, and access to affordable transportation, can substantially decrease household costs, in some cases by as much as five hundred dollars a month. When families can save on housing and transportation costs, it bolsters their resiliency and financial stability and allows greater spending on health care and education. These investments contribute to greater stability not only for these households, but for the broader economy: a recent study found that every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers actually adds about $1.21 to the national economy.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule is powerful only if we understand it and put it to use. Learn more about the rule in our upcoming webinar.

Benefit corporations provide a way for businesses to make profit without having to slash wages or resort to environmentally destructive practices. Ben & Jerry's, for instance, is one of the world's most popular ice cream brands with an annual sales revenue of $132 million. Its lowest-paid worker makes $16.13 an hour, which is 46 percent above the living wage in home state Vermont, and the company offsets more than 50 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions. More than 40 percent of the board and management are from underrepresented populations, such as women, people of color, lower-income individuals, and people with disabilities.

In a time when U.S. corporate profits are soaring but wages remain stagnant, Ben & Jerry's and hundreds of other companies, including Cooperative Home Care Associates profiled below, are choosing an alternative business model – benefit corporations – driven not just by profits but also by fair working conditions, diverse leadership, and environmentally sustainable practice.

One of the fundamental challenges to growing more "triple bottom line" businesses is the legal requirement to maximize profits that applies to corporations. Anything that takes away from profits, such as higher wages or more sustainable environmental practices, leaves the corporation vulnerable to being sued by its shareholders. This limitation hinders companies from advancing any values beyond profit making.

In response to this limitation, a movement was started to pass legislation allowing for a new type of corporate entity called the benefit corporation. The benefit corporation provides legal protection for businesses that choose to treat their workers well, protect the environment, and invest in their communities, even if it means their annual profits are not as high. As of 2013, 19 states plus the District of Columbia passed benefit corporation legislation, including Delaware, which is home to 50 percent of all publicly traded companies and 64 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

In 2012, Ben & Jerry's took a step beyond being a benefit corporation and became a Certified B Corporation, as conferred by a nonprofit organization called B Lab. There are currently more than 1,000 registered B Corps. A Certified B Corp voluntarily meets higher standards of governance, workforce treatment, environmental impact, and community involvement. Companies must score at least 80 points on a scale of 200 to be eligible for certification.

Certified B Corps are part of a community of socially responsible companies and span a large spectrum of goods and services. In 2012, Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the Bronx, New York, became the first home care company to become a Certified B Corp. Their overall B Score, at 154, is nearly twice the median score.

One of the reasons CHCA scores so high in the B Impact Assessment is because it is a worker-owned cooperative with the vast majority of the workers and worker-owners being from the Bronx. In an industry where good-paying jobs are hard to come by, CHCA deliberately chose a different business model, one that prioritizes workers over profits, and has flourished for nearly 30 years. The company has grown from 12 people to now over 2,000 employees, 70 percent of whom are worker-owners.

"When we started, a lot of for-profit home-care companies were established and were seen as a way of making a lot of money in a short time," said Michael Elsas, president of CHCA. "You didn't have to pay workers that much, you didn't have to train them that well, and you could move in and make a killing. And, in that environment we wanted to establish something a little different, more socially responsible."

Treating the workers well was not just a social mission, but it made good business sense. Elsas said, "Many of the people we were seeing were women, particularly women of color. The thought was if we train people longer and really spend time with them, if we prepare them for an entry-level position and get them ready to work and remove those barriers to work, and, if we provided a lot of support for those workers both before and after they were trained by us, we could create quality, full-time jobs. And then as a result of that quality job, we would be providing quality care that we could, in fact, provide better services."

CHCA has been a co-op since the company started in 1985. Going from a co-op model to also certifying as a B Corp was an easy decision and made a lot of business sense, Elsas said. "Distinguishing ourselves as a B Corp would be helpful in marketing to be able to say we are the only B-Corp certified home care company. We thought that would be helpful for those entities that want to do business with a B Corp. Quite honestly, it was a natural for us. There was very little that we had to do to get certified because we were already a worker-owned company, we already had everything in place."

Elsas said that CHCA is successful not because it is a co-op but because of the best practices they employ. Currently, 90 cents of every dollar that comes into the company goes to the worker. While paying workers less would result in higher profits and better dividends, Elsas said higher dividends is not what has made the company successful for 30 years. Instead, what makes CHCA successful is "how we train, how we supervise people, how we respect people, how we let people participate in what we do."

Companies like CHCA and Ben & Jerry's show that businesses can make a profit and embrace socially responsible practices. Higher wages and better work environments help working families reach economic security. Consumers can support B Corps and environmentally and socially conscious businesses by buying their products and services. A full list of B Corps can be found here.

From New York to San Diego, thousands of fast food workers have gone on strike for higher wages and the right to form unions. Roughly three million people – disproportionately people of color – work in fast food, earning a median wage of $8.94 an hour. Better pay would not only benefit them and their families; it also would strengthen the U.S. economy. Here's why:

1. Increase consumer spending. Every $1 increase in the minimum wage increases a household's consumer spending by $2,800 a year, estimates the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. Multiply that by three million fast food workers, and the nation would see tens of billions of dollars in new consumer spending.
2. Create better-paying jobs in low-income neighborhoods. Fast food establishments tend to cluster in low-income neighborhoods where there are few other employment options, including in poor suburbs. Raising wages for fast food workers would provide better employment opportunities, helping to revitalize neighborhoods while we continue to work to improve food choices in these communities.
3. Reduce strain on our public assistance programs. Restaurant workers, including fast food workers, are on public assistance programs like food stamps at twice the rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce, according to Saru Jayaraman from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. More than 80 percent of fast food workers earn less than $10.10 an hour, or $18,500 per year, which means they are eligible for food stamps if they're in a family of two or more. Raising the wage would allow our public dollars to go towards necessary investments in infrastructure and education, not subsidizing employers for low-wage jobs. 
4. Raise the floor for all. Higher wages for fast food workers would put upward pressure on other low-wage industries that hire from a similar pool of workers, like other restaurant work and retail. Restaurant, retail, and service occupations are projected to have the largest employment growth in the economy, and even though many who work in these occupations have some college education, these are among the few jobs that do not require a high school diploma. Raising the floor for these jobs is an essential step towards rebuilding a middle-class economy.
5. Create better opportunities for the next generation. More than one in four fast food workers struggle to support at least one child. Research from the Partnership for America's Economic Success shows that an increase in household income to 150 percent of the poverty line (roughly $14/hour) during early childhood can lead to increased earnings – by as much as $200,000 over his or her lifetime.