Cooperative ownership of home care and home health agencies is a growing trend, positively affecting workers and consumers.1 Home health aides, personal care assistants, and supportive home care workers are becoming owners of their own businesses, and as such have improved their wages, benefits, training, and level of workplace participation. Within the context of high and growing demand for services, as well as the need to upgrade home care jobs, worker-owned home care cooperatives are a promising model.

We begin with some basic information about cooperatives in general and worker-owned cooperatives in particular. Next, we provide examples of existing and emerging worker-owned home care cooperatives and discuss some of their benefits.