Support the campaign to decriminalize street vending in DC
Hello Baldwin House supporters! Today we want to highlight an important campaign from one of our incredible partners, Beloved Community Incubator, a worker-directed nonprofit that provides essential legal and technical assistance to Baldwin House. Staff from Beloved Community Incubator (BCI) served as a pro-bono lawyer for Baldwin House Community Collective, guiding us throughout the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) process and providing legal advice in our contract negotiations with the current owner of the building. Their mission is taking big actions towards manifesting the ultimate dream of Baldwin House: creating an ecosystem in DC where cooperatives of all kinds—housing, working, and financing—are possible!
Beloved Community Incubator has been organizing over a dozen co-ops in DC for the past three years to build worker power. From Baldwin House, to Dulce Hogar (a cleaning co-op), to Brighter Days (a dog walking co-op), to a tech co-op, we are building the solidarity economy together.
This year, BCI supported Vendors United, a group of over 80 street vendors, to decriminalize street vending in DC. We are calling on all of our Baldwin House supporters and lovers of worker cooperatives to make a contribution to support this decriminalization campaign. Here is a link to the #DecrimVendingDC fundraising page. Larger contributions of $100+ are encouraged as well as smaller contributions of $10, and anything in between!
If you are interested in learning more about how the DC government can invest in street vendors and transform small food business laws, check out BCI’s new report: Where the Sidewalk Ends: A Vision for Decriminalizing and Investing in DC Street Vendors.
Beloved Community Incubator is a truly innovative, essential part of expanding cooperatives in Washington DC. We hope you’ll join us in celebrating them and donating to them this season.
Wishing you a happy holiday season!
The Mission of Baldwin House:
To ensure and sustain our collective liberated future in the Howard University neighborhood of Ward 1 and across DC in which safe, stable, and healthy housing, housing communities, neighborhoods, and organizing spaces are grounded in Black, Latinx, native Washingtonian, and other frontline leadership - centering communities that have been historically excluded from generational property ownership. The goal is to create a model of intentional collective living and collective spaces that allow communities the safety to grow, create, and thrive and provides an alternative to break the cycle of displacement and gentrification. Baldwin House would serve both as an affordable residential cooperative and as a commercial hub for Ward 1 Mutual Aid operations, where residents and neighbors contribute to the space.
Can you chip in and contribute to our shared dream? Click here to donate