In our latest newsletter, we highlight our campaign to bring public banking to New York, our work taking on Big Tech, the expansion of our New Economy Loan Fund, and more! We also celebrate our founder, Sarah Ludwig, and invite you to join us at an upcoming Community Land Act Town Hall.
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BANKING FOR THE PEOPLE
Thanks to years of statewide organizing and advocacy, we’re now closer than ever to making public banking a reality in New York. This year, we achieved a historic milestone by advancing the Bank of Rochester Act through the state Assembly Banks Committee. This landmark bill—modeled on legislation New Economy Project co-drafted—would pilot the first full-fledged municipal public bank in the U.S., and pave the way for public banking in NYC and across the state.
Learn more in The American Prospect, featuring insights from our public banking organizer, Tousif Ahsan.
FOCUS ON OUR FOUNDER
We’re delighted to share that New Economy Project’s founder and longtime co-director Sarah Ludwig is profiled in an annual report just issued by The Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program at NYU Law School. In the feature, Sarah, a Hays alum, describes her founding of New Economy Project in 1995 and its evolution over the decades. She talks about the organization’s vision for and work to build a movement for transformational change—through public banking and community controlled finance, community land trusts and non-speculative housing, and public policies rooted in racial equity and cooperation.
“Sarah is undaunted by opposition and unrelenting in her drive,” said Debby Goldberg, a longtime advocate with the National Fair Housing Alliance, who is quoted in the profile. “She has built an organization that has become a powerful force for good, a team that is talented and diverse, and a mighty vision for what this world could look like.”
Sarah, who left New Economy Project in 2023 after 28 years of extraordinary leadership, told the Hays Program, “I feel especially fortunate to have worked alongside and learned from so many amazing community leaders, advocates, and organizers—who share a bold vision for a new economy, and for a very different politics and society.”
LAND AND FREEDOM
In September, we kicked off a Community Land Act Town Hall series in Brooklyn, with allies in the NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI). More than 75 residents from across the borough turned out to learn about the Community Land Act—a set of City Council bills to fight displacement and bring land and housing into democratic community control.
Join us at our upcoming Town Halls—tonight, 10/9, at 7 p.m. in Queens and on October 29th at 6 p.m. in East Harlem—as we continue rallying support for this game-changing legislative package, which would bolster New York City’s growing community land trust movement.
TAKING ON BIG TECH
Our Executive Director, Deyanira Del Río, testified before the NYC Council about the Adams Administration’s dangerous plan to hire a financial technology company to create a “digital wallet” for city workers and public benefits recipients. Read our testimony, in which we blast the plan for exposing low-income, immigrant, and Black and brown New Yorkers to financial predation, data exploitation, and surveillance.
Meanwhile, Associate Director Andy Morrison appeared on WBAI’s “Living for the City” to discuss Big Tech’s latest profit engine: your paycheck. Cash advance apps claim to give workers early access to their wages but function like triple-digit interest payday loans, trapping users in debt. Hear how we’re fighting back with labor and community groups.
LOAN FUND EXPANSION
Our New Economy Loan Fund is growing! This summer, we hit a major milestone, exceeding $1 million in patient, non-extractive loans to worker-owned businesses, community solar, and other democratically controlled initiatives.
We were especially thrilled to make our first real estate loan, which will help the East New York Community Land Trust stabilize and convert a 20-unit apartment building to permanently-affordable tenant ownership.
IN THE NEWS
- WBAI’s “Living for the City:” Ending Predatory Lending
- The American Prospect: The Push for Public Banking in New York
- The City: Council and Mayor Move to Revive Stalled Property Tax Debt Collections
- American City and County: City of Rochester Mulls a Groundbreaking Move: Creating its Own Bank
- News10 NBC: Consumer Alert: CEO says a public bank would allow her credit union to help more low-income borrowers
- NYN Media: Opinion – New York can make history with a Rochester public bank
- Spectrum News – State of Politics: Bill would establish public banking in New York, starting in Rochester
- The City: Pushback Grows as Council and Mayor Hash Out Deal to Revive Property Debt Sell-Off
- The New York Law Journal: Give New Yorkers a consumer protection law they can actually use
OUT AND ABOUT
Community land trust leaders and activists gathered at the Watershed Center in upstate New York to celebrate recent wins, exchange learning, and plan for the year ahead, at NYCCLI’s annual retreat.
Summer Fellow Asa Khalid-West, Campaign Organizer Tousif Ahsan, and other staff and interns canvassed New Yorkers in Union Square about predatory lending and the need to enact the End Loan Sharking Act.
The Public Bank NYC coalition reflected on another big year and mapped out exciting strategies for what’s ahead, at its summer retreat.
We rallied at City Hall with NYCCLI allies, calling for passage of the Community Land Act and increased funding for community land trusts in NYC’s budget.
Senior Program Associate Will Spisak spoke about our public banking campaign, at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition conference in Washington, D.C.
Executive Director Deyanira Del Río spoke about our campaigns and coalition building to advance racial and economic justice, at Inclusiv’s national conference, in NYC.
Campaign Organizer Elise Goldin engaged community members and promoted our Financial Justice Hotline, at Western Queens Community Land Trust’s summer block party.
Executive Director Deyanira Del Río spoke at PolicyLink’s Equity Summit in Atlanta on a panel about growing efforts to democratize land, housing, and finance.