DiGiPHOTO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Advisory-for Business, Community and Current Affairs Desks
 
For more information, please contact:
Tracy Parent, Organizational Director
San Francisco Community Land Trust
(415) 399-1490
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.sfclt.org
 
San Francisco Community Land Trust Awarded $50,000 by the Levi Strauss Foundation
to build assets in low income communities.
 
The San Francisco Community Land Trust (SFCLT) is pleased to announce a $50,000 grant, over two years, from The Levi Strauss Foundation.  SFCLT is honored by the Foundation’s recognition of its innovative housing model that preserves affordable San Francisco multi-family housing and enables low-income residents to develop assets through homeownership. This investment builds on the success of the Columbus United Cooperative in Chinatown and builds momentum for our community preservation work among HUD cooperatives and in the fast-changing South of Market neighborhood.
 
Merle Lawrence, Senior Manager at the Levi Strauss Foundation, commented, “The SF Community Land Trust embodies the pioneering spirit of our founder Levi Strauss.  The Levi Strauss Foundation continues his legacy by driving pioneering social change that brings our values to life in communities around the world. We are pleased to support San Francisco Community Land Trust and their innovative housing model that will strengthen our most vulnerable communities by providing opportunities for cooperative homeownership.”
 
Tracy Parent, Organizational Director of the SFCLT stated, "The San Francisco Community Land Trust is grateful to the Levi Strauss Foundation for its grant award.  This support will help us to reach our goal of helping to stabilize low-income communities through the development of affordable homeownership opportunities in the form of housing cooperatives." 
 
The need to create and preserve affordable ownership opportunities for households earning less than 120% area median income is well documented in the City's Housing Element and Consolidated Plan.  According to 2010 Census Data, fewer than 38% of San Francisco's population owned their home, and fewer than 25% can afford to buy a home without financial assistance. Despite the recent mortgage crisis, homeownership is still considered a high-leverage strategy for stabilizing communities, building family assets, and improving civic participation.
 
The SFCLT is a membership-based organization whose mission is to create permanently affordable, resident-controlled housing for low- to moderate-income people in San Francisco through community ownership of the land. SFCLT works to preserve San Francisco's diminishing affordable housing stock by acquiring and converting rental buildings into permanently affordable, limited-equity housing cooperatives through which the current residents share ownership of the residential co-op and the SFCLT maintains ownership of the land. By separating the building from the land, the units become affordable while the SFCLT maintains the affordability requirements in perpetuity.
 
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March 1st Housing Co-op's and Worker Solidarity Video is Available!

Check out the video of the presentation that Jamie Spector of SFCLT and Myrna Melgar (housing co-op and affordable housing expert) did on March 1st 2012 about the history of housing cooperatives in the United States and their links to organized labor, unions and workers in general. 

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

At the African American Arts and Culture Complex

762 Fulton @ Webster

Free and open to the public

You must RSVP to 415-931-0142