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 Columbus United Cooperative 55 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco

In June 2009, the Land Trust celebrated the Grand Opening of our first project -- Columbus United Cooperative --a 21-apartment, mixed-use building at the edge of San Francisco's Chinatown. This limited-equity housing coop is an important success story in a neighborhood where few residents are able to own a home. In 2005, the San Francisco Community Land Trust was approached about working with the tenants of the building, mostly low- and very low-income Chinese-American families who were fighting to save their homes from demolition.  With the help of Asian Law Caucus and Chinatown Community Development Center, the tenants organized to fight the eviction. Through an extensive process of community collaboration, we secured public and private financing to purchase the building and worked with the residents and community partners to rehabilitate the building and complete the coop conversion. With support and direction from the SFCLT, the tenants formed a housing cooperative. Former tenants are now back in the building, and SFCLT and Coop worked together to select new qualified Coop members for several vacant units.

966 Oak Street "The Purple House", San Francisco

In May, 2012 SFCLT acquired its second property. SFCLT closed escrow just before the 10-unit property was scheduled for public foreclosure auction in April, 2013 and the house officially became SFCLT's first resident operated non-profit cooperative in January 2013! The residents first approached SFCLT in early 2011 when the owners were trying to buy them out in order to sell the property. Meanwhile, the owners stopped paying their monthly mortgage payments. Over the course of a year, SFCLT helped educated and build capacity with the residents through its education and outreach program, funded by the Mayor's Office of Housing, The San Francisco Foundation, and the Levi Strauss Foundation. The mortgage was provided by Clearinghouse CDFI, a Community Development Financial Institution that provides affordable financing for innovative economic opportunities that improve the quality of life for lower-income individuals and communities that would otherwise not be able to experience these opportunities in the conventional market. The remaining funding came from SFCLT and individual lenders who provided short-term bridge loans for the down payment and closing costs.

534-36 Natoma Street, San Francisco

Asked by the community partners in SoMa to stabilize affordable housing in the neighborhood since 2009, SFCLT was finally able to purchase a 5-unit property that was at risk of Ellis Act eviction in January 2013 thanks to the SoMa Stabilization Fund and community partnerships. This property is not scheduled for cooperative conversion in the near future, rather, the acquisition and rehabilitation of this property serves as a unique community strategy to fight rapidly changing market forces in the South of Market neighborhood.

733 Baker Street "Baker's Dozen", San Francisco

In 2004, residents at Baker's Dozen approached SFCLT about transferring their existing cooperative to our organization. While it has been a long road moving through this conversion process, we look forward to welcoming Baker's Dozen, a 13-unit property, into our portfolio by August 2013!