Who We Are - L.A. Coop Lab

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The L.A. Co-op Lab is a collective that builds capacity for worker ownership in Los Angeles.

We host a variety of workshops and events where aspiring worker-owners can learn how to start and sustain a cooperative business, together. We are also members of Seed Commons, a financial cooperative made up of a national peer network of co-op developers who are committed to building more distributed ownership and democracy in our respective local economies.

Our aim is to advance worker-ownership as one way to push back against inequality, gentrification, and the gig economy by helping people who are often excluded from good jobs to collectively create their own and meet community needs.

Adriana Swain

Adriana is the L.A. Co-op Lab's Project Steward and is the Board Secretary for the Beverly and Vermont Community Land Trust. She is passionate about equitable community development, worked at Uplift Inglewood Coalition and the Social Justice Learning Institute, and has an MS in Environment, Politics and Development.

Jante' Pruitt

Jante' is a Project Officer at the L.A. Co-op Lab. Trained in community organizing and fashion design, she is passionate about visioning and creating new economic systems that enrich and not exploit, and that center care and collaboration. She believes in cultivating and expressing imagination, memory, and curiosity to stay focused on what our world could be.

Citlalli Velasquez

Citlalli is a Project Officer with the L.A. Co-op Lab. She brings a background in housing organizing where she supported tenants through rent strikes, cooperative conversions and city-wide campaigns. She grew up in North East L.A. and received her BA from Georgetown University. Citlalli is devoted to building joyous and life-affirming spaces alongside her communities.

Gilda Haas

Gilda has led numerous economic justice organizations, is a founder of the Right to the City Alliance, and has taught community economic development at UCLA for many years. She created the mobile co-op lab to serve L.A.’s unique geography and is on the Board of Seed Commons financial cooperative.

Karen Ochoa

Karen Ochoa is a program manager for the Hospital Association of Southern California who co-founded the L.A. Co-op Lab as her capstone project for an M.A. in Urban Sustainability from Antioch University. She is a dreamer and a dancer who works towards the day when economic democracy is the new normal in L.A.

Yuki Kidokoro

Yuki is a National Organizer for the Climate Justice Alliance, a skilled conflict mediator and facilitator, and helped create a 45 unit affordable housing cooperative at the Los Angeles Eco-Village where she lives. She loves gardening, karaoke, board games, and thinking about community governance structures.