People’s Plumbing is a worker-owned cooperative based in Cleveland that offers plumbing and home repair services through a gift economy model. 

Founded by longtime plumber and community organizer Cristobal Van Breen in 2023, the co-op grew out of a belief that access to clean water and safe housing are human rights. Cleveland has no shortage of plumbing and repair needs, which keeps the workers at People’s Plumbing busy with everything from leaky faucets to major sewer line replacements. 

In 2026, they aim to continue growing while meeting financial goals such as paying a living wage of $26 per hour and expanding health care and other benefits. The cooperative currently employs four workers, including an anti-authoritarian organizer (working to oppose oppressive power structures), who are paid $18 per hour and receive medical benefits. 

Cristobal and co-op member Wren Fiocco talked to Signal Cleveland about how People’s Plumbing began and how gift economics and cooperative ownership shape their work.

How did People’s Plumbing start? 

Cristobal: I started working for a plumbing company in California in 2002. I got my plumbing license in 2007, and I started my own company in 2008. At some point, I started doing non-violence workshops and other types of activist workshops on a gift basis. Within a couple of years, I started considering the idea of a plumbing company that worked on a gift basis. Then, around 2017 or 2018, I gave my company away, so I could focus on the community work I was doing. 

Eventually, I ran into some hard times and ended up living in my car in 2021 for a little over a year. In October 2022, I got a job in Cleveland. It was a one-year job, which included housing, food and a small stipend.

The last month of that job, a friend in a community chat just wanted to share rage at capitalism over a $17,000 sewer repair. I messaged them and asked, can I come and take a look? I used to be a plumber.

It was a relatively small job for a spot repair on a sewer line. I said, will you please let me do this for you? You do a lot for the community. I know you don’t have a lot. Let me just take care of this for you.

At the end of it, for less than $5,000 in materials and equipment rentals, we were able to replace not only the original job, but half of their line out into their front yard.

I saw a want and need in the community for services like clean drinking water, working sewer — those are human rights. This is a need, and people are denied that need on the basis of lack of income. 

You use a zine, titled “An Introduction to People’s Plumbing and Gift Economics: Building Community Through Plumbing,” to lay out your business model and values. What does it mean to operate with a gift economy model? 

Cristobal: We offer the work freely. We ask people to engage with the ideas of community and reciprocity and to think about how they want to give back. They could give back to us or give to others in the community. 

The other part that we’ve included in our zine is unconditional love. And we would like that to extend to everyone. If someone needs something, we give it to them because we owe it to them. We owe it to them for no reason other than they exist. (See the full zine.)

We’re offering gift economics as a vision for the future. That’s part of our vision towards liberation. We also have to say all of those things because we’re not licensed plumbers. 

How do gift economics shape the day-to-day operations of People’s Plumbing?

Wren: We get a call that someone needs some kind of work done, and we go. We have a conversation about what the gift economics model means to us. Really making it clear that we are offering our labor as a gift and that they can choose to contribute back as little or as much as they want. We say anywhere from $0 to $1 million. We get a pretty wide range within there. People have [also] bought tools for us.

Cristobal: The first thing we ask people to think about is joy. To think of the work that they’ve received from us as a gift, and what joy they would receive by giving that gift to other people, by helping us to be sustainable. 

There was a piece of feedback we received very early on: people need a number to think about. They’re like, I have no idea what to give you. So part of gift economics is being transparent. There’s a tool called a break-even tool. We look at all of the work we’re doing, our personal financial needs, and our financial goals beyond those immediate needs to calculate different numbers. 

Why is the worker co-op structure important to you practically and philosophically? 

Cristobal: The people who do the work should control the company. We try to operate in a more democratic way. We decided on a structure where future workers, after working 3,000 hours, could buy into the company for $3,000, and then they would be equal owners. 

The main difference between ownership and being a worker at People’s Plumbing is responsibility. The pay is the same. If anything, you might get less pay as an owner if you opt for it. It’s extra responsibility in decision-making. You have to make sure the insurance is up to date. You have to make sure the state paperwork is done. There’s a lot of legal and moral responsibilities that you have.

Wren: Having a co-op is important for making things horizontal as much as possible and not stratified or hierarchical. I think that part of undoing capitalism and undoing these hierarchies and structures is to share power and decision-making. It’s a much more consent-based workplace where everyone is able to voice their opinion, have their opinions heard, make decisions together, and there’s nothing being enforced top-down.

What are the typical backgrounds of your workers? 

Cristobal: I think with the exception of myself, everyone’s come with no experience. So it’s just on-the-job training.

When someone new is hired, they should ride with one of us. The other person will explain what we’re doing and have them start doing the work right away, immediately putting your hands on tools and starting to work on things.

Are there any specific experiences that keep you motivated to continue doing this work? 

Wren: Sometimes, after you do a job, you can tell just how positively it impacted someone. Even small things, like someone’s basement faucet had been dripping for forever, and it was causing them a lot of anxiety. And so we went, and it was a reasonably simple fix. 

They were just so happy about it. They were practically dancing around the living room. That’s what I feel in my heart. And I’m like, yeah, this is what I want to do. I want to be able to help people and bring that kind of joy. I see that across most of the jobs I’ve gone to at this point, people are just so thankful. 

Cristobal: A little over a year ago, a high school teacher reached out because she had a student who hadn’t had a shower in a while. It was this retired, senior-citizen grandmother who had custody of her grandkids, and she can’t work. She can’t afford a plumber, so they don’t have a shower in their house. 

And so I asked, what can you afford in terms of materials or things like that? And she was like, maybe $20. So I said, don’t worry about it. We’ll just take care of it. I was really hoping that we’d go and be like a broken faucet or a drain that needs to be snaked out or something, but in the shower, there was floor-to-ceiling mold on the walls. There was no faucet, and the drain was broken. There were a lot of issues that came up. 

It took us almost a year to get it to the point where they could use the shower. We had to learn how to do things and order parts we weren’t used to ordering. We were able to do that. And it was sustainable for us because other people contributed more. We didn’t have to worry about whether we had enough or not. We know we can do things for people.