In the City of Brotherly Love, the Philadelphia Housing Authority is now working with advocates for the unhoused by fixing dozens of vacant houses to directly house the formerly homeless as part of a newly established Philadelphia Community Land Trust.
The advocates, some of them unhoused themselves, were previously squatting unused homes owned by the housing authority and then pressured authorities to hand them over in revamped conditions rather than auctioning them off. They also lived in a protest camp in front of the housing authority headquarters for over a month to put additional pressure, until city officials relented.
Who would have thought: a housing authority agreeing to new ways to help those most in need.
The idea is to have “collectedly owned, permanently affordable housing that operates outside of the current piecemeal system of tax breaks, subsidies, inclusionary zoning programs, time-limited HUD contracts, and other efforts to influence the private market.”
Shelterforce, a website with expertise in such subject matters, also recently wrote: “The group is now working to realize Bennetch’s vision of a sprawling, independent housing cooperative, operated and occupied by formerly homeless people as an alternative to what she saw as the controlling or even coercive shelter options provided by government and foundation-funded organizations.”
Bennetch is Jennifer Bennetch, an outspoken activist and homeless encampment organizer, who passed away last year at the age of 36 after being the main driver of this initiative.
In a GoFundMe just prior to her death from illness, she wrote: “Please help us house individuals who don’t qualify for typical housing programs in a non-restrictive private home.”
The Shelterforce article goes on to say, the community land trust “needs to gain control of several dozen more vacant homes and find substantial funds to rehabilitate and maintain the units, while working not to stray from Bennetch’s ideals.”
Bennetch grew up in foster care, and after aging out became unhoused, with no housing options with her limited income, and no programs to help her specifically.
Her legacy is now that the squatting to legally living in a home cycle has been completed.
Harper’s Magazine reported in its February 2023 issue that “about fifty individuals remained housed in homes Bennetch helped them to occupy.”
Several mothers have regained custody of their children due to their new housing. Grants are coming in to help.
Where are the recent updates for the Community Foundation’s Community Land Trust?
Could this Philadelphia model be duplicated here in Reno?
In 2019, there was a Reno Gazette Journal article indicating “Reno was looking at tax-delinquent, abandoned homes for affordable housing.”
The article by Jason Hidalgo mentioned that “the RHA oversees about 150 houses acquired through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and are being rented out at affordable rates. That program, created through the Obama administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, allowed the RHA to acquire houses in high-foreclosure neighborhoods during the recession. The city of Reno has also donated properties to the RHA in the past, which the organization is renting out.”
What was done in Philadelphia though is transferring these homes to an advocate-run, grassroots community land trust.
Locally, the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada with expertise in “philanthropic advising, grantmaking, charitable asset investment management, leadership, and community engagement” has started a Community Housing Land Trust.
It currently lists Golden Valley Homes at the top of its dedicated page : “The City of Reno donated 2.5 acres of land in Golden Valley near West Golden Valley Road and Yorkshire Drive to the Community Housing Land Trust in October 2020 to develop single-family homes for ownership for buyers making less than 80% of AMI. As with all Community Housing Land Trust home sales, the buyers will own the home and lease the land from the Community Housing Land Trust. The price of the homes will be below the market rate. “
It’s unclear what has come of this. It seems the Philadelphia process responded much more urgently to those desperately in need of housing.
The Community Foundation also has listed its City Cottage, as “the first home sold by the Community Housing Land Trust.” A picture on that page has a photo of a couple which includes a well-known local advocate smiling. What about others?
Finally, it has the Village of Sage Street, which has 216 dorm units, at a rent of approximately $400 a month, a successful model (even if some residents have complained of too much security) but it seems it’s our only such “village” for now, rather than having more.
The latest article on the website is from August 2020, with residents appreciative of the “Village.” Where are the more recent developments in these pressing times, with COVID-19 related programs which helped people being evicted ending, and high numbers of people locally desperately seeking new options before they get kicked out of their homes?
Like Philadelphia, converting vacant properties might be a good place to start. Rather than criticizing motels, these could also be bought out by the City before Jacobs Entertainment gulps up more to turn them into housing for the very poor.
Another alternative happened in the Bronx where residents created a so-called Housing Development Fund Corporation which allowed them to improve buildings abandoned by their landlords.
The Real Deal real estate news website reports “the goal was to use funds from either the city or a nonprofit to buy the building and create a tenant-run cooperative to manage it. Tenants who lived in the building during the process could then buy shares in the cooperative that would secure their space for $2,500 each. They would then be able to live there rent-free while paying typical monthly upkeep charges, and are allowed to sell the homes.”
In June, a Michigan-based real estate company purchased two Motel 6 properties in Reno, “with plans to remodel them into affordable workforce housing,” according to the RGJ.
The strangely named company Repvblik said it was acquiring the motels at 1901 S. Virginia St. and 1400 Stardust St., just west of Keystone Avenue.
Why didn’t the City of Reno purchase these instead and hand them over to a grassroots community land trust organization?
At the county level, recently, at a Washoe County Board of Commissioners meeting, data was shared indicating only 850 subsidized affordable housing units have been added in the area since 2018, while over 30,000 people are in need.
It was also pointed out that county code permits commissioners to give county land to nonprofits to build affordable housing units. This is called land banking, and at least two of the commissioners said they are in favor of trying this out. That’s short of the three votes needed.
Elected officials give themselves pats on the back for any project that provides affordable housing, and say they are committed to helping with our affordable housing crisis, so why don’t they go all out, in every possible direction? They wouldn’t just be fooling us with their words would they?