As gentrification and unaffordable rents intensify pressures on New York City\u2019s low-income residents, the movement for community ownership has been building.<\/p>\n

At a recent panel, hosted by the Change Capital Fund, City officials supported the calls of Change Capital Fund\u2019s grantees for new policies, increased investment and urgency in deploying land and buildings for community purpose, including affordable housing, community centers, and commercial spaces for neighborhood enterprises.\u00a0 The panel was moderated by Alyssa Katz, Executive Editor of The City and included: NYC Comptroller, Brad Lander; NYC Chief Engagement Officer, Betsy MacLean; Mychal Johnson, Co-Founder of South Bronx Unite; and Sandra Lobo, Executive Director of Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aren\u2019t going to be able to build a more equal and a more inclusive economy where folks have stability in their housing, in their lives and in their families and some measure of autonomy with their neighbors if we don\u2019t take the democratization of wealth and control seriously,\u201d affirmed NYC Comptroller, Brad Lander<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTop-down planning has not really helped the people who are in our communities that are suffering from displacement, health issues, economic and social injustices; so, we see planning from the ground up as necessary. We have to be the ones to develop our own path forward,\u201d asserted Mychal Johnson<\/a>, a founding member of South Bronx Unite. South Bronx Unite is seeking to redevelop the Lincoln Recovery Center, a City-owned property, which has been vacant and deteriorating for 11 years, as a cultural, educational and health center. The organization has engaged hundreds of community members in planning the new community center.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur people are getting displaced. Our communities are getting gentrified and, at the end of the day, we don\u2019t own anything,\u201d said Sandra Lobo<\/a>, Executive Director of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. The coalition has formed a Bronx Community Land Trust and are planning the development of several properties as permanently affordable housing.\u00a0 \u201cIf you look in the Bronx right now, most residents live in multi-family, rent stabilized houses.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a realistic objective for them to ever own their own home unless it\u2019s through passing the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) and they own it collectively with Community Land Trusts as partners, ensuring affordability over the long haul,\u201d said Lobo.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can look at community ownership in two ways,\u201d said Betsy Maclean<\/a>, NYC Chief Engagement Officer.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a way to build equity, a way to build power\u2026 You can also think of it as a home. And to me, home is everything. Home is belonging. Home is connection to your neighbors. Home is well-being.\u00a0 Home is love.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lander proposed<\/a> that the City work to double the number of permanently affordable housing units and estimates that would get us to only 20% of all city housing stock. \u201cThat would take public policy, support on the ground and a lot of capacity building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Change Capital Fund is investing in eight organizations and collaborations, out of more than 30 applications received from NYC-based organizations. The grantees are mostly small organizations, led by people of color, who are seeking to create new, permanently and deeply affordable rental housing or home-ownership opportunities, open spaces, community facilities, cooperatively-owned food businesses and\/or food hubs. The intention is that the properties will be held as community land trusts or other forms of permanent community ownership.<\/p>\n

Panelists:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
Alyssa Katz<\/strong> (moderator) is executive editor with The City <\/em>(TheCity.nyc) and a former member of the NY Daily News editorial board. Previously, she was editor of The New York World and City Limits. She has served on the Local Advisory Committee for LISCNYC and as a communications consultant with the Pratt Center for Community Development. Katz is the author of the books \u201cOur Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us\u201d and \u201cThe Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life.\u201d<\/li>\n
Mychal Johnson<\/strong> is a founding advisory board member of South Bronx Unite. As a long-time activist and advocate for environmental, economic and social justice in the South Bronx, he is a founding member and board member of the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards. Mychal serves on the board of directors of the NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI), the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, and the Community Advisory Board of Columbia University\u2019s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. Mychal was also appointed as a civil society voting member of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Open Space Committee. He has been a member of Bronx Community Board 1 and was notably selected by the United Nations to serve as one of 38 global civil society appointees to the historic UN Climate Summit in 2014.<\/li>\n
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander<\/strong> was elected to serve as our city\u2019s budget watchdog and chief accountability officer in 2021. In City Council, Lander co-founded the Progressive Caucus. He spearheaded efforts to protect workers and build a more equitable economy. He helped lead a successful grassroots effort to desegregate the middle-schools of Community School District 15, partneredwith advocates and legislators to combat discriminatory stop-and-frisk policing and helped bring participatory budgeting to NYC. Lander was one of the founders of Local Progress, now a 1000-member strong network of local elected officials advancing a racial and economic justice agenda through all levels of local government. Prior to holding public office, Lander spent 15 years in the nonprofit sector as the director of the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center for Community Development<\/li>\n
Sandra Lobo<\/strong> is the Executive Director of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), a 49-year-old member-led organization that unites diverse people and institutions to fight for racial and economic justice through intergenerational organizing. The NWBCCC organizes around health justice, environmental sustainability, school to prison pipeline, equitable economic and community development, and safe affordable housing. Before this role, Sandra was trained in anti-oppression organizing and leadership development incorporating a restorative justice framework. She served as Director of the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice at Fordham University for 17 years, shifting the focus of the Center\u2019s work from a charity to a justice model. Sandra has served as a board member of the Simon Bolivar Foundation and Robert Sterling Foundation Advisory Council. She currently serves as President of the Bronx Community Land Trust.<\/li>\n

Betsy MacLean<\/strong> is New York City\u2019s first-ever Chief Engagement Officer for NYC. Appointed in 2022, she ensures that community engagement is a core function of NYC government to advance democracy, justice and belonging. In addition, Betsy led the Civic Engagement committee of NYC Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 transition team and the Housing, Land Use & Planning committee of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. Before City Hall, Betsy served as Executive Director of Hester Street, a national leader in participatory planning, policymaking, and design. Prior to moving into national work, Betsy was the Director of Community Development at Cypress Hills LDC in East New York, Brooklyn. There she planned and developed hundreds of affordable homes, spearheaded the community-led design and construction of Brooklyn\u2019s first green public school, and created a neighborhood-wide planning and sustainability initiative. Betsy began her career as a carpenter. Her carpentry work brought her to Cuba where she created and led an international community development program.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Change Capital Fund\u2019s grantees:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
East Harlem\/El Barrio CLT<\/strong><\/a> is completing rehabilitation of distressed city-owned properties as tenant-run, permanently affordable housing with land to be owned by the community land trust.<\/li>\n
The East New York CLT<\/strong><\/a> has taken stock of every vacant parcel in East New York, Brooklyn and has identified several potential development sites for permanently affordable housing. They also seek to establish a preservation pilot program to model alternatives for tax-distressed homeowners to help them avert foreclosure.<\/li>\n
Interboro Community Land Trust<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>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 is a citywide CLT. With over 400 apartments in their pipeline, they will dramatically increase the stock of permanently affordable homeownership and wealth-building opportunities available to low- and moderate-income and BIPOC households.<\/li>\n
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition<\/strong><\/a> is advancing three affordable housing projects on land to be put into the Bronx Community Land Trust.<\/li>\n
ReAL Edgemere CLT<\/strong><\/a> is a new organization that was awarded 62 vacant lots to create affordable, two-family homes, open space and commercial space on the Rockaway Peninsula, an area that had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy.<\/li>\n
RiseBoro Community Partnership and the Central Brooklyn Movement Center<\/strong><\/a> are collaborating to open the Central Brooklyn Food Coop as a Black-led, consumer- owned food store which will do business with several Black-owned food-based worker coops to foster an integrated, neighborhood-centered local food economy.<\/li>\n
South Bronx Unite<\/strong><\/a> seeks to renovate and repurpose the city-owned and abandoned Lincoln Recovery Center as a new H.ealth, E.ducation, and Arts hub for neighborhood connection and activities, a culinary arts kitchen, performance and co-working space as well as affordable space for local nonprofit organizations.<\/li>\n
Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice<\/strong><\/a> (YMPJ) <\/strong>will develop empty space under the Bruckner Expressway, Bronx as the Soundview Economic Hub to create 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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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