We begin in Oakland
Our Work
The Challenge
More than 181,000 people are living unhoused in California today. Black and Indigenous Californians are significantly overrepresented among communities most impacted by housing instability.
Like every person, these frontlines communities need and deserve healthy, high-quality homes that shelter them from increasingly dangerous climate events; are close to those they love; and allow them to maintain a sense of belonging and place. And like every community, they deserve the economic power to shape their work, spaces, and lives.
Sadly, in the Extractive Economy housing is treated as a commodity, an investment, and a tool, rather than a human right.
As a result, housing has become increasingly expensive for Californians. Meanwhile, harmful economic policies and practices have rendered frontlined communities more economically vulnerable and at risk of losing their homes in the face of rising costs. Climate change only exacerbates these economic vulnerabilities and displacement by further increasing housing costs and rendering homes unsafe.
The compounding impacts of these economic, housing, and climate crises render people living unhoused unable to build the power they need to help transform our economy and achieve long-term stability.
Our Solution
-
-
2. House People.
Resource unhoused community members with permanent, high-quality, climate-resilient homes provide services that residents identify they need to rest, heal, and achieve well-being.
-
3. Build Community Power.
Transfer ownership of the properties to residents, and support them in building the capacities to cooperatively own, manage, and self-govern their housing communities and otherwise build economic power.