East Harlem/El Barrio CLT was formed through partnerships with East Harlem residents and community partners, Picture the Homeless and the NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI). After extensive community workshops, door knocking, surveys, and other outreach, East Harlem/El Barrio CLT incorporated in 2014 with a focus on transferring distressed city-owned properties to the CLT for rehabilitation and preservation as deeply, permanently affordable housing. Alongside ongoing negotiations with the NYC Department for Housing Preservation and Development, EHEBCLT led deep resident engagement work to promote leadership development and shared decision-making with current tenants. Partnering with two nonprofit developers, Banana Kelly and CATCH, four building are nearing complete rehabilitation and occupancy as tenant-run, permanently affordable housing. The first four buildings include 38 apartments, two commercial spaces, and one community space, all owned by the tenant-run MHA on CLT land. CCF funds will support training of existing and new residents to run the properties as they convert to tenant ownership and enable the CLT to conduct community base-building and planning to develop a vision for development without displacement and to identify additional CLT acquisition opportunities.
The East New York CLT formed just prior to the COVID pandemic to provide new opportunities to the residents of East New York and Brownsville, the majority of whom earn less than 65% of the citywide median income and are, therefore unable to afford to live in even the “affordable” housing being developed in those neighborhoods. With CCF support, this young organization acquired a 23-unit, privately-owned, occupied building. ENYCLT had been organizing for needed repairs at the building and now they are planning a major renovation. Ultimately, they hope the residents will manage the building and they intend to put the land under the building into the Community Land Trust, ensuring permanent affordability. East New York CLT has taken stock of every vacant parcel in their community and has identified 18 potential development sites in East New York and Brownsville. Through East New York CLT’s organizing power, partnership with Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation and others, they hope to keep expanding properties in the CLT.
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Formed in 2017, Interboro Community Land Trust is a citywide CLT that is a collaboration between the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester County, the Mutual Housing Association of New York, and the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. Over the next five years, Interboro will harness the expertise, resources, and homeownership projects of its founding partners to dramatically increase the stock of permanently-affordable homeownership and wealth-building opportunities available to low- and moderate-income and BIPOC households in the city. CCF will support Interboro’s capacity to build out 11 projects in its pipeline that will generate a total of 432 permanently-affordable homeownership units for households earning between 50% and 100% AMI. These projects are limited-equity housing co-ops and single-family homes that will be located in LMI census tracts in Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx. The land underneath the co-ops and homes will be owned by the CLT. This arrangement will enable Interboro to ensure that the co-op units and homes not only remain permanently affordable to LMI and BIPOC households, but also remain community-controlled and non-speculative, community assets in perpetuity.
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RiseBoro Community Partnership and the Brooklyn Movement Center are collaborating on the Central Brooklyn Food Democracy Project (CBFDP), an initiative to create a new food economy that fosters Black self-determination, food justice, and economic justice within the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Central Brooklyn, specifically Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. At the center of the project, is the Central Brooklyn Food Cooperative, which, has gathered over 250 members to launch a Black-led, consumer-owned food store to provide healthy and affordable food to low- and moderate-income residents.
Black-owned food-based worker coops, established with training and support from RiseBoro, will trade with the Food Coop, with each other, and with buyers outside the network. The Food Coop will open a brick-and-mortar store that will help lay the groundwork for an integrated, neighborhood-centered local food economy. CCF support will help low- and moderate-income residents cultivate food sovereignty and a healthy food culture for their community based on values of self-determination and cooperation.
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South Bronx Unite is working to create a thriving, community-owned asset in Mott Haven- Port Morris, an epicenter of racial, social, and environmental injustice and the country’s poorest Congressional District. They aim to acquire, renovate and repurpose the city-owned and abandoned Lincoln Recovery Center, building on the legacy of the Black Panthers and Young Lords in the 1970s. After organizing multiple community visioning sessions where locals identified the Center as a key resource for meeting dire community needs, South Bronx Unite submitted a response to a City Request for Proposals to convert the long empty and neglected building. Their community-led proposal is for a Health, Education, and Arts hub (HEArts Center), which will provide programming ranging from holistic health services a
nd green workforce development trainings to music performances and art exhibitions, creating opportunities for area residents to realize their potential and achieve a better quality of life. The renovated community center will also provide much-needed and deeply affordable space for local nonprofit organizations vulnerable to displacement.
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Since the 1990s, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Inc. (YMPJ) has been organizing residents of the South Bronx communities of Bronx River and Soundview/Bruckner to transform blighted landscapes and contaminated soils along the Bronx River into community assets. Partnering with City, State and Federal agencies along with local stakeholders, they have significantly remediated and redeveloped over 20 acres of park space and, in 2017, launched The Bronx River Foodway, creating the City’s first public foraging site and food forest. YMPJ was a lead partner in a local alliance that led to the $1.8 billion redevelopment of the Sheridan Expressway, creating direct access into the Hunts Point Distribution Center by reducing truck traffic on local streets reducing toxic air pollution and providing community access to the waterfront. YMPJ also spurred the creation of Morrison Avenue Plaza, a public place which includes an Open Market featuring tri-state area farmers and local entrepreneurs. With support from CCF, YMPJ will develop The Soundview Economic Hub, a key spoke in their broader Bronx River/Soundview Sheridan-Bruckner Community Food Sovereignty Network, designed to transform the South Bronx from a food desert into a vibrant foodscape that supports increased community health, wealth, and resilience. The Hub will stimulate the local economy by providing opportunities for food manufacturers, vendors, and service providers, while also serving as a vibrant community space hosting food and cultural programming, clean soil distribution, employment, job training opportunities through incubator space, and intergenerational programs and activities for residents.
