The Public Bank LA coalition has done amazing organizing work not only in terms of building together a people’s movement for a municipal bank but in bringing in experts to scope out need and to propose ways of establishing a sustainable, transparent, accountable institutution.
Most recently, the Jain Family Institute and the Berggruen Institute developed a joint report series exploring a LA public bank’s potential to meet financing needs for affordable housing, small business, and green energy. The series also looks at issues of democratic bank governance and incorporation issues, and the place of a value-driven public bank in the larger financial landscape.
The report finds that an LA public bank could significantly reduce costs for green energy, create nearly 1,500 jobs by financing transition of businesses to employee-ownership, and help build over 17.000 units of affordable housing.
Part six of the series is a nifty interactive tool that allows readers to allocate loan funds between housing, economic justice, and green energy portfolios, to see how these choices impact housing units, jobs, and clean megawatt hours created.
You can read the whole series here.