To advance housing justice for all, we need solutions at scale. Scaling just solutions that match what our communities want and need is about more than building more affordable housing units. It requires building a culture and system that prioritizes people over profit, honors community self-determination, and fosters shared responsibility to each other and the earth. This sort of cultural and systemic transformation is only possible with greater alignment and collective capacity across the housing field, which requires contending with what drives practitioners apart: competition over scarce resources, siloed networks, and far too little time to step away from organizational priorities to engage in broader field-building (to name just a few).
This panel discussion builds on the frameworks and recommendations presented in Living into the Future: Scaling Community Owned Housing in California, highlighting the relational organizing that operationalizes housing justice for all.
We pick up one of the many questions raised throughout our housing research: How can the housing field transform these dynamics, bridge across silos, and create a more cohesive housing ecosystem, in order to live into a better future of belonging for all? Through uncommon partnerships, some community land trusts, nonprofit LIHTC (Low-Income Housing Tax Credit) developers, and supporting organizations are charting pathways into that future and expanding opportunities for community ownership.
Join us in hearing from three leading California practitioners as they reflect on the work of bridging in housing, what possibilities and questions it opens up, and how we can move through the tensions and challenges in practice.
This panel will bring together:
- Felix AuYeung is the Vice President of Business Development at MidPen Housing, where he has contributed 5,000 new affordable homes into their pipeline over the past 10 years. He is also partnering with several local CLT’s to assist with acquisitions.
- Gerrlyn Gacao manages the Common Counsel Foundation’s Community Ownership for Community Power (COCP) Fund, a philanthropic collaboration to resource community owned housing organizing and development across California.
- Roberto Garcia-Ceballos is the Executive Director of Fideicomiso Comunitario Tierra Libre (FTCL), a community land trust in LA collaborating with larger nonprofit LIHTC (Low-Income Housing Tax Credit) developers to build community owned housing.
Register for for the discussion to join us for this stage of an ongoing discussion on how individual relationships make up a symbiotic ecosystem that scales solutions for housing justice.
