OUR MISSION

OakCLT’s mission is to expand and preserve housing and economic development opportunities for Black, Latinx, Asian, other communities of color, and low-income residents of Oakland. In practice, we acquire housing, land, and other critical community-serving real estate and steward them in trust to ensure that they remain affordable forever. We create innovative shared-equity ownership structures that balance the needs of individuals and families to build wealth with the long-term goal of permanently preserving affordability. We foster leadership and build community power through an engaged board of OakCLT residents and community members to enact a vision of resident-powered development on community-owned land.

OUR CORE VALUES

STEWARDSHIP

Stewardship is an ethic guiding our long-term approach to land reform, sustainable housing, & community building.

OakCLT is a steward of:

  • Land so that it permanently serves a community-defined purpose.
  • Public subsidy invested in CLT housing so that it serves generation upon generation, and is not diminished upon resale.
  • Quality, healthy housing so that families can live and build equity in a safe, stable, and supportive environment.
  • Resident leadership among a growing body of CLT families that enacts our shared mission and vision for the permanent community control of land and housing.

PERMANENT AFFORDABILITY

The housing created and stewarded by OakCLT–whether ownership or cooperative rental–is permanently affordable.

OakCLT ensures affordability by:

  • Retaining ownership of the land underneath the housing it develops. We don’t pass on the full costs of a property to a family.
  • Striking a balance between the needs of individual residents & families to live in a stable & supportive environment with the broad goal of ensuring that affordable housing will exist for future generations.
  • Paying it forward – CLT residents agree that when they move on to another housing situation they will extend the same benefit they received to another low-income individual or family. This principle is enacted through a ground lease between the CLT and its partner residents.

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP OF LAND & RESIDENT CONTROL OF HOUSING

OakCLT removes land from the speculative market so that it serves low-income residents forever. OakCLT’s value of community control is achieved through the following principles:

  • OakCLT acquired land is held in trust for the community in perpetuity.
  • The sale of CLT land does not conform to the stewardship philosophy and purpose of OakCLT.
  • OakCLT’s bylaws ensure that a diverse group of community interests are represented on its board of directors, including provisions that at least one-third of the directors must be low-income residents, and another third are residents of the neighborhoods served by the land trust.