{"id":434362,"date":"2024-08-02T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=434362"},"modified":"2024-08-05T15:19:47","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T22:19:47","slug":"community-land-trust-california-affordable-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_es\/california-divide\/2024\/08\/community-land-trust-california-affordable-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"'Vivienda asequible para otra generaci\u00f3n': los fideicomisos de California retiran propiedades del mercado"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\n\t\t
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In summary<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

California community land trusts \u2013 which buy land and sell or rent the buildings on it to low-income residents\u2014 have tripled.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

Lea esta historia en Espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine years ago, tenants of the Pigeon Palace at 2840-2848 Folsom Street in San Francisco faced a dilemma. Their aging landlord, who had long rented at affordable rates, was unable to continue overseeing the place. Instead a court-appointed conservator took steps to auction off the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Pigeon Palace is in the popular and increasingly expensive Mission neighborhood, the residents feared a new owner might dramatically raise their rents \u2014 or kick them out altogether. So they crowdfunded $300,000 and gave it to a non-profit called the San Francisco Community Land Trust, which combined it with loans from a bank and the city to place the winning bid of more than $3 million. The trust then rented units back to the tenants at affordable rates.

Much of the political debate about California\u2019s housing crisis has focused on building new units. But community land trusts, a method of preserving existing affordable housing that dates back to the Civil Rights Movement, have quietly been gaining steam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of community land trusts \u2013 non-profits that buy up land and then sell or rent the buildings on top of it to low-income residents \u2014 has tripled in California since 2014, according to the California Community Land Trust Network<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the housing units that such trusts oversee number only in the low thousands, supporters say the model is cheaper than building new and can help stabilize communities at risk of gentrification and displacement. Indigenous tribes, immigrant neighborhoods and formerly-affordable inland cities are among the communities experimenting with community land trusts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, tenants of Pigeon Palace, a six-unit Queen Anne building, pay between $1,400 and $3,000 per month for spacious two-bedroom apartments in one of the pricey city\u2019s most desirable neighborhoods. They share a bike room and garden with outdoor meeting space and make decisions together about building management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe shifted from being renters in a market where someone could buy our building any day, to where no one\u2019s coming to buy our building,\u201d said Keith Hennessy, an experimental dance performer who\u2019s lived at the Palace for 22 years. With that stability, he said, \u201cit\u2019s easier to build a family. It\u2019s easier to build community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Community Land Trust has grown to oversee 150 units, including two larger buildings in the Tenderloin district that primarily house Spanish- and Mayan-speaking service workers. Last year, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave the organization $20 million<\/a> to expand its portfolio and help incubate new land trusts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community land trusts can oversee single-family homes or multi-unit buildings, and residents can rent or own. When residents own their homes, the trust retains control over the land, leasing it to homeowners long-term and requiring that any home sales be to other low- or moderate-income buyers or back to the trust. Tenants in multi-unit buildings typically cooperate to manage the property, and sit on the trust\u2019s board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than just creating new affordable housing, community land trusts help stem the bleed of existing affordable housing being converted to units for wealthier residents. While the trusts are not new in California, concern about growing corporate control of housing<\/a> and the rising cost of new construction have driven increased interest in the model, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The California Community Land Trust Network represents 50 established and emerging trusts across the state, with most of the newest ones springing up in working-class Black and brown communities, according to the network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving control of buildings to the community. We\u2019re taking it off the speculative market and we\u2019re ensuring that tenants can become homeowners if they want to,\u201d said Jessica Melendez, director of policy for TRUST South L.A., which recently bought two small multi-unit buildings in gentrifying South Los Angeles with the goal of turning them into cooperatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organization also owns the Rolland Curtis Gardens, a 140-unit apartment complex with a health clinic and market near the University of Southern California, on a site that was slated for conversion to market-rate housing until the trust purchased and rehabbed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n