When Steph Wiley and his cousin Shawn Santana launched Brooklyn Packers in 2016 as a cooperative, they were looking for a more resilient, democratic way to build a local food system.
But like many worker-owned cooperatives, Brooklyn Packers has faced a familiar barrier: access to capital. Conventional lending practices, especially the widespread requirement for personal guarantees, don’t fit democratic ownership structures.
That’s beginning to change, as a Brooklyn credit union pilots a new loan product designed specifically for worker co-ops—part of a broader shift in how lenders think about risk, ownership and opportunity.
In a recent article, Next City’s Senior Economic Justice Correspondent Oscar Perry Abello explores how Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union is reworking small business lending to meet the realities of worker ownership.