By Niloufar Khonsari, Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine

Also we don't have an ED anymore either!

Excerpt: "We researched other democratically governed nonprofits and political organizations. Although we didn’t find any that had no executive director, we learned about various ways that organizations distributed authority. Our key role models were AORTA, Sustainable Economies Law Center, and Fortify Community Health. Our work was also informed by Frederic Laloux’s book, Reinventing Organizations, which deconstructs the myth that collectively managed organizations have no structure, organization, or leadership."

By Rachel Gertz, Yes! Magazine

Excerpt: If you’re converting into a coop, you’ll need to valuate the company, then sell it to the workers. This can be a complicated process depending on a ton of factors (especially if the current owners will continue on as employees of the new cooperative). So you will need to urge everyone, including your lawyer, accountant, and the workers, to make a fair conversion plan for everyone. The Sustainable Economies Law Center’s “Legal Guide to Cooperative Conversions” is a great place to start.

By: by Vrinda Manglik, TheKneeDeep Times 

Excerpt:

"We believe that transforming the way we relate to and made decisions with land is at the heart of a just transition away from an extractive economy and toward a more just and life-affirming one."-Chris Tittle, Sustainable Economies Law Center

Read full article here.

(Originally published March 17, 2022.)

By: Marisa Kendall, The Mercury News

From our friends at Poor Magazine

Excerpt:

“We have people on the street in this city, and they still refuse to open four beautiful, multi-family townhouses,” said Gray-Garcia, who goes by “Tiny.” Gray-Garcia used to be homeless herself. She planned to sleep in a tent in Frank Ogawa Plaza until the city grants the occupancy permit, but ended up leaving Tuesday night after the police showed up.

Read full article here.

(Originally published March 2, 2022.)

By: Carey L. Biron, Thomson Reuters Foundation News

Excerpt:

Over the next five years, Hernandez and her family went through a period of unstable housing, including nearly three years squatting. Then, last year, the landlord of the multi-unit house they were living in tried to push tenants out.

As Hernandez researched ways to fight back, she found the Radical Real Estate Law School, a new initiative helping people become housing lawyers by having them apprentice with practicing attorneys and eventually take the bar exam, bypassing traditional, expensive law programs.

Started by the nonprofit Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) last year, the initiative aims to create lawyers versed in nontraditional tools such as land trusts and cooperatives to help address the country's affordable housing crisis.

Read full article here.

(Originally published December 14, 2021.)

By: Mwende Hinojosa, Nonprofit Quarterly

Excerpt:

Tired of ongoing black disenfranchisement and gentrification, this community group came together in the spirit of Black and Brown power. They were made up of members from groups that were already trying to make an impact in Deep East Oakland—Repaired Nations, Black Cultural Zone, The Deep Grocery Coop, Feed the Village, Sustainable Economies Law Center—as well as unaffiliated community members who were artists, healers, organizers, activists, and entrepreneurs. At the tail end of a second Black out-migration from the Bay, the group felt the name of their collective needed to send a clear message to their families, neighbors, and future collective members: Oaxxanda.

Read full article here.

(Originally published November 11, 2021.)

By: Jessica Kutz , High Country News

Excerpt:

"One such organization is the Sustainable Economies Law Center, based in Oakland, California. The nonprofit has been around for more than a decade, providing legal tools to worker and housing cooperatives in the region, among other initiatives. 

High Country News recently spoke with Chris Tittle, the center’s director of land and housing justice, and Dorian Payán, co-director of the Radical Real Estate Law School, about their work, and about the possible housing and land futures that can exist under these alternative models."

Read full article here.

(Originally published October 5, 2021.)

by Natalie Orenstein, The Oaklandside

Our inspiring friends at Homefulness/POOR Magazine have encountered every legal barrier imaginable as they work to build housing for Oakland's unhoused community. The Law Center has partnered with them to address the latest

Read full article here.

(Originally published October 20, 2021.)

By: OSCAR PERRY ABELLO, Next City

Excerpt: “We’re trying to hold our ground by not defining the entire process up front or acting like it’s our job to do that,” says Janelle Orsi, staff attorney and co-founder at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, which helped convene the collective starting in May. “What we’re defining instead is a participatory process we’re going to facilitate, giving a lot of examples on how it might play out. We’re treating the budget more like a menu that we could all order off of, as opposed to a budget of exactly what we’re going to do.”

Read full article here.

(Originally published August 24, 2021.)

By: Mwende Hinojosa and Jocelyn Foreman, Nonprofit Quarterly

Excerpt: My mother had just died, and I was being retraumatized by seeing the foreclosure notices. Christine [Hernandez of Sustainable Economies Law Center] was telling me I had more options than cash for keys. But then I realized I had to tell people my situation and be naked. I had to know my rights and stand in my power.

Read full article here.

(Originally published August 18, 2021.)