Bay Area Community Land Trust

Join us at EBHO's lunch & learn later this month!

Starting off the new year with some great energy! Monday morning we held a celebration & press event with residents, community & project partners, and elected officials to recognize the momentous achievement of residents at 2627 California Street in Berkeley, who self-organized and partnered with BACLT to move their homes off of the speculative market and into permanent affordability. It was inspiring to see such support for housing preservation and speaks to the promise of community-controlled housing as a potent solution for long-term housing stability. Check out coverage from KGO/ABC7: https://lnkd.in/gSWWKEq4 Many thanks to our speakers: residents Inti Fernandez and Tamir Luqman, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett, former Councilmember Sophie Hahn, Michael Trujillo from East Bay Community Law Center, Elizabeth Wampler from LISC Bay Area, former Berkeley Rent Board Chair Leah Simon-Weisberg, and former building owner Lehron Hamilton, and BACLT's Matt Gustafson and Tracy Parent. The cost to acquire and rehab this 12-unit building was $4.8M, just over $400k per unit. All units will remain permanently affordable and the residents will begin the process of forming a cooperative to collectively own and manage the building. Thanks also to all the community, partners, and Elected officials who turned out to support: Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra, Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas, U.S. Bank, United Way Bay Area's Housing Justice Ambassador & Director, The Northern California Land Trust, Supportive Housing Community Land Alliance, Enterprise Community Partners, Mechanics Bank, and Berkeley's Housing & Community Services Development team! This kind of change doesn't happen without you all. Berkeleyside article: https://lnkd.in/gyVqPmDb More press: https://lnkd.in/gNXXKTDh

We’re thrilled to share some exciting news:?last week BACLT closed on the purchase of 2627 California Street, a 12-unit building in South Berkeley!?This marks a huge victory for the residents, who partnered with BACLT to face down imminent displacement and secure permanently affordable, stable, community-controlled homes. We are deeply grateful to the Hamilton family for their stewardship in keeping this building affordable to low-income and primarily Black residents since 1963. We aim to honor their legacy with the ongoing stewardship of this community resource for generations to come. The building is home to an organized, motivated community of residents including families and seniors, many of whom were born & raised in Berkeley. Their advocacy?helped secure $10 million dollars in Berkeley’s Small Sites Program?– a remarkable feat at a time when the City budget is tight and the State has shelved all of its preservation funding programs. The Small Sites Program was then used to purchase 2627 California Street.?Residents remain organized and have already begun training to self-manage and form their own Housing Cooperative. Many thanks to all the partners who made this happen:?Councilmember Ben Bartlett?and the?Berkeley City Council, LISC Bay Area, City of Berkeley’s HHCS staff, Richard Hurlburt?and Jaymee Faith Cadiz Sagisi?with?IMPACT,?Ismael Benhamida?and?Chris Saiz?with?Compass Real Estate, and?the Hamilton family, as well as all the BACLT staff who worked tirelessly to get us across the finish line! Support our efforts to secure more people-powered, community-controlled homes in 2025: www.bayareaclt.org/donate

How can we build a world where everyone, regardless of background, finds not just housing but a lasting home defined by affordability, safety, and joy? Communities where housing is collectively owned, democratically run, and permanently affordable? It starts with community, with coming together and uniting around the ties that bind us as neighbors, as humans, as family. It takes our love and our labor to deliver this kind of world. And as we build and steward this community it's essential for us to ensure folks most impacted, with most at stake, are in a central position to shape everything we do. BACLT recently held our annual member meeting, bringing together 60+ residents, members, and new folks to break bread, learn what we've been up to this year, and make collective decisions. BACLT residents were the largest group in attendance and five residents presented about their experiences and challenges. Our membership recently elected 3 new residents to our full, majority-BIPOC, majority-women board, and a dozen new members have joined in the past month. And our Co-op Program Manager, on staff since July, is first and foremost a BACLT resident! This year we've already seen the transformative power and positive influence of intentionally bringing residents more into the center. It's shaping and strengthening how we do the work. We're thrilled that the movement and community we are creating together is alive, and it is growing!

Heartfelt congratulations to Sharron Watts-Brooks and the other Partners for the Bay's Future Fellows for completing their two year fellowship! Sharron played a key role in our community partnership with the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority's Preservation Team (BAHFA), which included BACLT, Urban Habitat and the Unity Council. We wish Sharron success in her next adventure!

??Happy Tuesday folks! We're thrilled to announce a capacity building campaign to preserve and restore our East Bay communities through community-controlled housing. It's labor-intensive work and we need your support to a sustain a healthy, grounded, and liberating space of belonging for future generations! We're deeply grateful for a generous $75,000 gift from US Bank to kick off the campaign. See the official press release for more:?https://lnkd.in/gUQXKTwU For more opportunities to join us in person this summer — including a Board Fundraiser with live music and original artwork, an International Cooperative Day Social Hour, and a BACLT Neighborhood Tour — check out our campaign page: https://lnkd.in/gTMBPmHp We hope to see you this summer!