In Oakland, a radical approach to housing shortage
By Erin Baldassari for the Mercury News
Excerpt: Noni Session, a third-generation Oakland resident, returned after five years to the city where she was raised only to find it growing increasingly unrecognizable. Session is now the director of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, or EB PREC, a nascent cooperative corporation that last week launched its first campaign to purchase a four-unit apartment building in North Oakland. While housing cooperatives have long worked to purchase individual properties and retain them as affordable housing stock, EB PREC is hoping its model can grow into a network of properties that can begin to effect lasting change.
Read the full article here.
(Originally published December 11, 2018.)
East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative Featured in Solidarity House Podcast
By Solidarity House Cooperative
In this episode of Solidarity House Cooperatives: Cowboys on the Commons, Noni Session and Greg Jackson introduce the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative.
Read moreResolution to support seed saving and sharing
By Neal Gorenflo for Shareable
Seed saving and seed libraries are on the rise as communities deepen their commitment to healthy, delicious, local food. However, several U.S. states, including Minnesota and Pennsylvania, began applying regulation meant for commercial seed producers to small-scale, community seed libraries in 2014.
Read moreHow the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is pioneering a model for equitable housing
By Saki Bailey for Shareable
Excerpt: The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is an impressive burgeoning commons legal institution that's aimed at the decommodification of housing. It is pioneering a new legal institution for how we can own homes more equitably, collaboratively, and in such a way that they're permanently off the speculative market.
Read moreCoalition applauds California’s low-income rooftop solar investment
Excerpt: Solar industry, renewable energy and environmental justice organizations and advocates applauded a decision today by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that will increase opportunities for low-income households to go solar, lower their utility bills and participate in the state’s growing clean energy economy. Following a multi-year process prompted by Assembly Bill (AB) 327, the Commission approved a 12-year solar rebate program for low-income homeowners living in disadvantaged communities that expands on California’s long-standing Single-Family Affordable Solar Homes (SASH) program. The decision was proposed by Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves.
Read moreNonprofits and Clean Energy Entrepreneurship: Shifting the Norm at CalSEED
By Victoria Paykar
CalSEED has gotten its fair share of applicants looking to bring clean energy concepts to market. However, we see an important group mostly missing from this collection of entrepreneurs eager to advance their hardware or software concepts in energy efficiency, energy generation, storage, electric vehicle technologies and more: nonprofits.
Read more5 shared living ideas to counter rising housing costs
By Courtney Pankrat for Shareable
Excerpt: In the past 50 years, overall housing costs for both renters and owners have skyrocketed at astronomical rates in the U.S. The most drastic example of this is in San Francisco, California, where according to one study saw a "37.9 percent spike, from $2,900/month on average to $4,000/month even" between 2012 and 2017, Curbed San Francisco reported. Meanwhile, the median income in the city by the Bay is around $82,900. This problem, of course, isn't limited just to San Francisco or the Bay Area. Residents in relatively smaller housing markets like Denver, Colorado and Portland, Oregon, are in similar boats. Traditional housing options are clearly unattainable for many, and people are getting creative in how they meet their housing needs. Some of these have been around for decades, like cooperative housing and community land trusts, while some like tiny house communities have been popularized in recent years. Below, we take a look at some shared housing models around the globe that people are turning to in order to counter the high costs of living.
Read moreCapital Impact Partners’ Fourth Co-op Innovation Award Addresses Racial Inequality
Capital Impact Partners announced today that it has awarded grants totaling $50,000 to the Association for Black Economic Power and the Sustainable Economies Law Center, co-winners of its fourth annual Co-op Innovation Award. This year, the award recognizes two organizations leading initiatives that address racial inequality and create social impact through economic empowerment for residents in low-income communities.
Read more'Workplaces are commons': Q&A with Sustainable Economies Law Center's Ricardo Nuñez and Chris Tittle
By Robert Raymond for Shareable
Excerpt: Nobody gets to vote on the decisions made in the workplace, on who their boss is, on what they’re company produces or how it's distributed. When it comes to democracy in modern society, economic control is notably absent. The Sustainable Economies Law Center is an organization based out of Oakland, California, that puts economic democracy front and center in its mission to support community resilience and grassroots economic empowerment. The organization provides legal tools, such as education, research, advice, and advocacy with the aim cultivating a new legal landscape that supports economic democracy in the broadest sense.
Read more70 Experts Share Their Best Advocacy Planning, Strategy, Skills and Training Tips
By Ann Dermody for CQ
Excerpt: How would you like to have your own personal government relations or advocacy mentor on speed dial? Even, if you’d been in the business for years? Well, we’re about to give you the next best thing. We conducted 70, (yes, 70!) interviews with some of the leading minds in the worlds of government relations, nonprofit, advocacy, public policy, and fundraising, and asked them four pertinent questions:
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