District Works: Improving a City From the Ground Up

How IJ is Changing the Landscape for Entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C.

When IJ Associate Director of Activism Brooke Fallon started talking to entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C., about their experience doing business in the District, she got an earful about the burdens and challenges they face just trying to get off the ground. The result of those conversations was District Works, an IJ-led project and coalition of small business owners, nonprofits, and community members striving to make it cheaper, faster, and simpler to start a business in D.C.  Brooke and Activism Researcher Alex Montgomery talk in this episode about what they learned from entrepreneurs, and how things can change for the better.

Recent Episodes

January 05, 2022

When Can Your Past Bar You From a Job—And When Should It?

In Virginia, any one of 176 so-called barrier crimes can disqualify a person from work in certain occupations for life—no matter how old the conviction, how unrelated it is to the work the person desires to do, or how little it reflects the person’s fitness today. These laws kept IJ client Rudy Carey from fulfilling work as a substance abuse counselor for people he is uniquely fit to help. In today’s show, we talk about what happened to Rudy and how he is fighting against collateral consequences laws that are irrational and unjust.

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