The Small Business Route Out Of Poverty

Raheim Watson grew up in Harlem, New York, surrounded by drugs and violence but decided he wanted a different life when his son was born. He moved to Richmond in 2014, where he has purchased a home, the first one in his family to do so, and, with help from UnBoundRVA, started his own business. His window-washing business is focused on the residential and small-commercial market.

The Small Business Route out of Poverty (by James A. Bacon) - UnBoundRVA is my kind of anti-poverty initiative! The organization identifies people in low-income neighborhoods who have the potential to succeed as small business owners, and then provides them a year of training, advice and networking support as they develop a business plan.

Once the business models are in place, each hopeful business owner makes a pitch for startup capital from a collective pool of $100,000 in low-interest loans. UnBoundRVA then connects the businesses with partners who provide pro bono services in areas such as legal, accounting, marketing and banking.

UnBoundRVA made it into the news recently when the Richmond Times-Dispatch highlighted a $20,000 donation to the group by Pat Hull, the entrepreneur behind logistics apps Getloaded.com and Scoopmonkey.com. “Your dream may not be the next Google. But who cares, if you are supporting your family and creating jobs?”

The not-for-profit enterprise was founded by Sarah Mullens and Richard Luck, who met while teaching in the inner city as part of the Teach for America program. They saw a large number of talented individuals who weren’t pursuing a college track for reasons that had nothing to do with ability or work ethic. “We believe that potential is restricted by the forces of the poverty cycle, and that the human capital of these individuals is our nation’s greatest underutilized asset,” states the UnBoundRVA website.

High-potential individuals in the current class, which will finish in June, are pursuing businesses in the following areas: clean-up services for construction projects, a mobile auto detailing service, a professional house organizing and redesign service, vegan cookies, and a mobile virtual reality gaming experience.

Bacon’s bottom line: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for his life. In contrast to so many leftist-inspired “social justice” programs that don’t even feed a man for a day — they teach him to march and protest until someone gives him a fish. UnBoundRVA teaches people to fish. It may not provide a systemic cure for poverty, a goal that has eluded this nation despite the expenditure of trillions of dollars in public and philanthropic anti-poverty programs over the years, but it can make a tremendous difference to the people whose lives it touches.

If you want to address the “root causes” of poverty, you have to change the lives of people one individual at a time. UnBoundRVA does that.

That said, it’s not clear from the website if UnBoundRVA is a cost-effective way to address poverty. The program has an annual budget of $268,000, supporting a staff of four full-time employees and one part-time. How many people does it help with that annual investment? According to the website, UnBoundRVA collects the names of individuals interested in starting their own business, enrolls twelve candidates in a six-week workshop and selects the five most promising for a one-year program of business support. The website does not say how many times it runs through this cycle each year. If only once, not so good. If eight or nine times, helping 40 or more people, that’s more defensible. One thing I do believe: It’s a model worth trying.

About Raheim: I was born in Harlem, New York and raised by my hardworking mother and stepfather. The neighborhood I lived in was filled with drugs and violence, so I figured that was the thing to do. In 2008 when I had my son, I knew I had to rearrange my life. I didn’t want my son to grow up in a neighborhood like the one I did. I wanted to show him that anything is possible, that he can do anything he sets his mind to and that the world is filled with beautiful, great people. So I set two goals: own a home and start my own small business. I moved to Richmond and in 2014 I became the first person in my entire family to close on a home. I then reached my second goal, my own business: Watson’s Windows & Exteriors.

Raheim’s Business: Watson’s Windows & Exteriors is a window washing and power washing business. Watson’s Windows & Exteriors looks to build its competitive advantage by introducing a new technology to the small commercial and residential window-washing sector. Mr. Watson plans to use a system that purifies water that is then sent up a telescopic pole allowing him to clean up to three stories from the ground. This system does not require chemicals or ladders making it the greener, cleaner and safer alternative to conventional window washing. This technology is being used with larger commercial projects, but has not taken off yet in the small commercial and residential sectors. Watson’s Windows & Exteriors will change that.

A Virginia Court Slams Cleaning Companies Phony Yelp Reviews

Bad reviews: Business owner Joe Hadeed (left, with Virginia governor McDonnell) wants to sue anonymous reviewers of his carpet cleaning business for defamation. When Joe Hadeed, the owner of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, began to receive bad reviews of his service, he suspected the reviewers were not actual customers of his cleaning service, but "trolls" out to irresponsibly damage his reputation. Both were conditions that were in violation of Yelp's terms of use. Mr. Hadeed's attorneys issued a subpoena demanding the names of seven anonymous reviewers, and after a brief review of the motion, a judge in Alexandria ruled that Yelp had to comply, and reveal the identities of those individuals who had posted the negative reviews.

Judge orders Yelp.com to unmask anonymous critics who tore into biz - 'Defamatory speech is not entitled to constitutional protection,' huffs appeals beak: A US Court of Appeals has ordered Yelp to identify anonymous reviewers who slammed a cleaning company. In his ruling this week [PDF], Judge William G Petty, sitting in Virginia, told the review-sharing website to turn over personal information on seven of its users who had panned Hadeed Carpet Cleaning on Yelp.com. 

The family run cleaning biz had alleged those seven critics were not customers – it says it has no record of the services the reviewers are complaining about. The cleaners believe the Yelp users deliberately posted negative reviews in order to harm the company. Hadeed, based in Virginia, is seeking to sue the seven for defamation. Yelp has a contact email address, ZIP code and IP addresses from which the site was accessed on file for each account holder, all of which are crucial for the cleaning biz's litigation.

The legal battle started in 2012 when Hadeed subpoenaed Yelp for the identities of seven users who had posted the bad reviews. Yelp turned to the Court of Appeals to quash the subpoena, claiming the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and, in some cases, ensures the anonymity of those who post opinions and reviews on the internet.

According to Judge Petty, however, the rights of Hadeed to protect its reputation from defamatory statements overrides the protections of anonymity, and thus Yelp should be required to hand over identifying data on the seven reviewers. "The freedom of speech – and within this, the freedom to speak with anonymity – is not absolute ... If we assume that the Yelp reviews of Hadeed are lawful, then the John Does may remain anonymous," the judge wrote in his decision.

"But if the reviews are unlawful in that they are defamatory, then the John Does’ veil of anonymity may be pierced, provided certain procedural safeguards are met. This is because defamatory speech is not entitled to constitutional protection."

Yelp, meanwhile, stood fast in its assertion that the case threatens the rights of its users to discuss their experiences honestly and freely. It will appeal to a higher court to scrub the subpoena. "Consumers may feel the need to speak anonymously for privacy reasons or for fear of unfair retaliation by a business," the company said in a statement. "This ruling could have a chilling effect on free speech in Virginia specifically, and Yelp will continue to fight to protect consumers' privacy and free speech rights."

Yelp has become no stranger to the courts and claims from outraged business owners. Firms have accused the site of harboring users who deliberately post negative reviews of businesses in order to harm reputations and drive away customers to rivals. Meanwhile, the site and its users have claimed that companies are using the courts in order to bully independent reviewers and customers into silence and suppressing negative reviews.

Court orders Yelp to reveal anonymous reviewers' identities in defamation case: A Virginia court has ruled that the identities of seven anonymous reviewers who criticized a local carpet cleaning business must be revealed. In a decision that will strike fear in the hearts of all anonymous online trolls, an Alexandria judge ruled on Tuesday that Yelp must comply with the demand of Joe Hadeed's attorneys and hand over the names of the reviewers. Alexandria-based Hadeed Carpet Cleaning was the subject of several negative reviews on the site by anonymous authors - who Hadeed claims were not real customers of his business.

If he is correct and the customers are not genuine, Yelp's Terms of Service will have been violated, and the comments will not be protected under the First Amendment. The case began in 2012 when several negative reviews were left on Hadeed Carpet's Yelp page, some claiming the company swindled customers, overcharging hundreds of dollars above the quoted price, while others said their carpets ended up looking worse than before they were cleaned.

Joe Hadeed could find no record that the reviewers were actual customers and sued the authors of seven negative reviews and subpoenaed Yelp for their identities. According to the Courthouse News Service, Yelp refused several times and was help in contempt of court. On Tuesday, the Virginia Court of Appeals agreed two to one, that Yelp must identify the anonymous reviewers. Yelp's Terms of Service requires that reviewers must have been a customer of a business to leave a review.

Bad opinion: The company's Yelp page has seven negative anonymous reviews from 2012 which Hadeed says cannot be matched to any customer.

The company does not require users to register with their full name, but does record the IP address of each review posted. 'The Virginia statute makes the judge a gatekeeper to decide whether or not there’s a common sense reason for someone in our position to get this information,' Raighne Delaney, a lawyer at the Arlington firm Bean, Kinney & Korman who represent Hadeed, told the Washington Times.  'In order for someone like Joe Hadeed to find out who these people are, he has to explain his case, and if he can convince the judge that there might be a real lawsuit against this person, the judge can then say, "Yes, you can get this information,"' said Delaney. If the negative reviews were written by people who were never customers of Hadeed, he will sue for defamation.

Small business: The company cleans and repairs carpets and rugs.

The non-profit advocacy group Public Citizen that represents Yelp says reviewers should not have to reveal their identities when expressing opinions protected by the First Amendment and that Hadeed should have to at least prove that the reviews were false before the identities are handed over. Yelp's lawyers say Hadeed did not meet nationwide standards necessary to uncover the anonymous users, but the court disagreed. 'Yelp said that all the posts had different IP addresses, but how many IP addresses does one person have between all their devices?' said Hadeed’s attorney, Raighne Delaney, to the Washington Times. 'It would be easy to create a number of different fake accounts.'

In a 25-page majority opinion, Judge William G. Petty said, 'Generally, a Yelp review is entitled to First Amendment protection because it is a person’s opinion about a business that they patronized. 'The anonymous speaker has the right to express himself on the Internet without the fear that his veil of anonymity will be pierced for no other reason than because another person disagrees with him,' Judge Petty wrote. However, the court said that First Amendment rights do not cover deliberately false statements and agreed that Hadeed provided sufficient reason to believe the users may not have been customers of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning.

A Virginia Court Slams Phony Yelp Reviews: Small businesses may no longer have to worry about negative Yelp reviews, provided that the reviewer was never actually a customer. That's according to a decision from the Virginia Court of Appeals, which this week ruled the popular website must disclose the names of seven reviewers who anonymously slammed Richmond-based Hadeed Carpet Cleaning. The court held that the reviews were not protected First Amendment opinions if the reviewers were never customers and therefore making false claims.

Raighne Delaney, the lawyer representing store owner Joe Hadeed, told the The Washington Times the ruling upholds a lower court statute that will allow judges to decide whether business owners may have a legitimate legal case against online reviewers or another compelling reason to get their names. In his 25-page majority opinion, Judge William G. Petty wrote, "a Yelp review is entitled to First Amendment protection because it is a person's opinion about a business they patronized," and anonymous reviewers do have the right to express themselves without fear of disclosure.

However, Petty wrote, the First Amendment does not cover false statements. After searching through his customer database, Hadeed had reason to believe the reviewers were never customers of the business, so the "review is not an opinion" but "based on a false statement." Paul Levy, an attorney who represented Yelp, said the ruling will "make it more difficult for the marketplace of ideas to get valuable information about companies." "I’ve litigated in many cases for 14 years, and it’s the first time ... in which we thought the [anonymous party] was clearly protected and the court said they were not," said Levy.

Window Cleaning News Round-Up

A WINDOW cleaner cheated death when he fell 10ft from his ladder and brushed spiked railings at a Cambridge hotel, UK. The 42-year-old suffered a flesh wound to his leg but an ambulance worker said: "If he had fallen at a different angle it could have been a lot more serious. "The man was working as a sub-contractor cleaning windows at the De Vere University Arms Hotel when he appears to have slipped from his ladder. "He was awake and alert but complaining of numbness in his legs. "A spokesman for the hotel said: "We are investigating what happened and will be working closely with environmental health. "We have all the necessary risk assessments in place, and are satisfied it was a genuine accident." "We will also be speaking to the person who was injured and the company he works for to ensure they also had the correct safety procedures, such as non-slip shoes, in place." Note: This event was reported to have occured in Regent Street, London (incorrect).

In Virginia, USA: One side of a window-washing rig slipped from its anchoring near the top of a downtown Richmond office building this morning. The worker in the rig was able to right it and lower himself to safety. Richmond firefighters were called to an 11-story building at the James Center complex at Ninth and East Cary streets shortly before 10 a.m. for a report of a rig dangling near the roof. Firefighters closed off a portion of Ninth Street while the worker righted the misaligned side of the rig and slowly lowered himself to the sixth floor, a process that took about 30 minutes. At that point, the worker left the rig behind and rappelled safely to the ground. The worker was identified as Alejandro Alvarado, an employee of Universal Building Services.
LONG BEACH - As if leading the government of the fifth-largest city in California weren't enough, Mayor Bob Foster now does windows, too. On Monday morning in the lobby of City Hall, Foster demonstrated the use of new environmentally friendly cleaning products that soon could be used in all city buildings. Pictured: Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster cleans a City Hall window with a Sun Valley Green cleaning product under the eye of company founder Teresa Cochran. Foster announced a pilot program to give the firm's green cleaning products a trial.

And finally, monks in Bangkok, Thailand were reported to have cottoned on to the benefits of using water fed poles.....