Kristen A. Hackett, Deshonay Dozier, Mariya Marinova. 2019. “Community land trusts: releasing possible selves through stable affordable housing.” Housing Studies 34(1): 24-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2018.1428285

Housing affordability – a long-standing issue for low-income households – is crucial for the flourishing of both households and communities. When housing is unaffordable, households struggle to attain and maintain housing, which negatively effects household well-being. Since the foreclosure crisis, community land trusts (CLTs) have emerged as a viable housing policy. Relying on quantitative and qualitative data collected by a Minneapolis-based CLT, this study examines the experiences of 91 CLT homeowners. Our analysis illustrates how the CLT’s institutional framework alters the political, economic, social and material relations that characterize the lives of these households to facilitate the provision of previously unavailable resources. Beyond indefinitely stabilizing households, this new arrangement of relations creates a foundation for the cultivation of ontological security and contributes to the opening up of possibilities and the unfolding of life in ways not previously possible.

Deborah G. Martin, Azadeh Hadizadeh Esfahani, Olivia R. Williams, Richard Kruger, Joseph Pierce, James DeFilippis. 2020. “Meanings of limited equity homeownership in community land trusts.” Housing Studies 35(3): 395-414. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2019.1603363

Discourses regarding homeownership in the United States emphasize housing as an economic investment. This focus fosters a number of problems, including inflated housing values, increased segregation, economic divisions, and the foreclosure crisis. Community land trusts (CLTs) put land in a non-profit trust to keep it affordable long-term. We examine CLTs as affordable housing organizations where individual residents own homes in the trust and lease the land underneath from the CLT. Interviews of CLT homeowners and staff in Minnesota, USA, show that the use value of CLT housing creates opportunities for different life choices. CLT homeowners cite stability and autonomy as the primary benefits of homeownership. They expressed newfound confidence and freedom to pursue personal goals and live less restricted lives after moving into CLT homes, a finding also emphasized by CLT staff. Limited equity housing such as CLTs can both reinforce dominant meanings of homeownership as providing security and autonomy, while also fostering access and affordability for low-income residents.

CNHED has a new report titled “Creating and Sustaining Limited Equity Cooperatives in the District of Columbia” with Kathryn Howell of VCU as one of the authors. The 2020 report discusses how LECs might be expanded in the District, knowing that “Limited Equity Cooperatives (LECs) provide a critical source of affordable homeownership, stable community networks, and political power in neighborhoods across the District of Columbia.” The report also refers to another interesting study titled “A Study of Limited-equity Cooperatives in the District of Columbia,” which examines 57 LECs and finds the overwhelming majority in stable or excellent shape. Learn more about LECs through these reports!

Today Washington, D.C., seems like a terrain of hyper-gentrification and widespread displacement. Yet D.C. has also been and continues to be at the forefront of grassroots experiments combating these destructive trends and creating new, democratic worlds. Amanda Huron, an assistant professor of interdisciplinary social sciences at the University of the District of Columbia, brings us into this on-going history in her new book, Carving out the Commons: Tenant Organizing and Housing Cooperatives in Washington, D.C. Read the full book review published in Washington History (Fall 2019, volume 31 (1-2), pp. 100-101) here: Huron review.

I was reading a description of an upcoming conference:

The conference will be held at Monte Verità, a former utopian-like hub of alternative cooperative life and now site for numerous formidable architectural works, standing in the beautiful landscape between the Alps and Lago Maggiore in the Swiss canton of Ticino.

Which made me wonder what Monte Verita was. There is much more to find out, but here is the official website:

Their social organisation based on the co-operative system and through which they strove to achieve the emancipation of women, self-criticism, new ways of cultivating mind and spirit and the unity of body and soul , can at the best be described as a Christian-communist community.

Learn more about the Love & Solidarity Collective (née Lamont Street), one of DC’s oldest intentional communities, and its Dec. 8th event “What happened 2 Chocolate City?”:

In the Street Sense Filmmakers Cooperative, participants create and share visual narratives from the viewpoint of the street. In the process, co-op members learn the methods and tools of cinematic production (literacy and resume skills) as they help activate one another’s stories.

View their videos here.

Read more about the co-op in The Washington Post, The Atlantic‘s CityLab, PBS, and  The Washington City Paper.

Listen to the cooperative at this weekend’s DC Historical Studies Conference. They will be speaking on Saturday, November 23rd, 5:15 – 6:30 pm, Special Performance with the Humanities Truck exhibit, “Downtown Displaced: A Case Study of Gentrification in Mount Vernon Square 1840-Present.” Street Sense Media Filmmakers Cooperative performers will provide their own interpretation of the neighborhood change and the meaning of Apple moving into Mt. Vernon Square. Performers: Bryan Bello, Street Sense Media Filmmakers Cooperative, Reginald Black, Street Sense Media Filmmakers Cooperative, Angie Whitehurst, Street Sense Media Filmmakers Cooperative.

The International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP) gathers scholars dedicated to exploring the economics of democratic and participatory organizations, such as labor-managed firms, cooperatives and firms with broad-based employee share-ownership, profit sharing and worker participation schemes, as well as democratic nonprofit, community and social enterprises. The IAFEP Conference, which take place every two years, provides an international forum for presentations and discussions of current research on the economics of participation. The 2020 IAFEP Conference will be held in La Jolla, CA June 21-24 alongside and in collaboration with the Beyster Symposium, sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing of Rutgers University.

Key themes:

1. Development and dynamics of financial and decision‐making participation
2. Effects of participation on firms’ and workers’ outcomes
3. Socio‐economic and political environment
4. Economic participation and political democracy

For further questions: e‐mail Trevor Young‐Hyman and Nathalie Magneat iafep2020@gmail.com

Extended Abstracts (max. 1000 words) in English should be sent by e‐mail to Trevor Young‐Hyman and Nathalie Magneat iafep2020@gmail.com by February 28, 2020.

On Saturday, October 26, 2019 at THE ARC (1901 Mississippi Avenue, SE), DC Co-op Day will bring together the DC co-op ecosystem – worker co-ops, limited equity housing co-ops, food co-ops, co-op technical assistance providers and co-op advocates – for a day of learning, connecting and organizing.

We will learn together about DC’s radical co-op history and we will have workshops that cover things like:

• Co-op governance and decision making,
• How to start a co-op, and
• How co-ops can get access to financing.

Co-op developers and lawyers will also be available to provide free advice.

Join us to help build the DC co-op ecosystem!!

Breakfast and lunch will be provided for attendees!

The event is free, but seating is limited. Early registration is encouraged. Free parking is available. The closest metro stations are Congress Heights or Southern Avenue on the Green Line.

Please email us at mail@dcstakeholders.coop if you are interested in supporting or getting involved in the event.

Worker-owned cooperatives are one of the most compelling answers to the question of how to create workplaces that center dignity and respect for all workers. Cooperatives allow us to use businesses as a tool to build wealth in our communities that have historically been and are currently being divested from. Cooperatives can also provide a framework for long-lasting community controlled infrastructure that is committed to addressing and dismantling racial and class inequity. Interested in learning more about the nuts and bolts of starting and operating a worker cooperative in your community?

Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED) will be hosting their third annual Worker Cooperative Jumpstart! This will be Saturday Sept. 14th from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm at Impact Hub Baltimore. It will be a day long series of workshops focused on establishing and running worker cooperatives. There will be something for everyone. So whether you’ve been a worker-owner for years, are thinking about starting a co-op, or just want to learn more this event is for you! Organizations and individuals welcome! There will be exciting new content focusing on cooperative conversions.

For more information visit
Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/save-the-date-3rd-annual-worker-co-op-jumpstart-tickets-64812608256
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/2560980410592809/

There is a suggested donation of $1-25 per person to cover the cost of the event and lunch. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. If you or your organization need any specific accommodations, or to request interpretation services, please email  info@baltimoreroundtable.org by Sept. 6th. Same day registration is available.

Tune-in to WOL 1450 AM on Thursday, August 15, for Everything Co-op,hosted by Vernon Oakes. This week Vernon covers the Federation of Southern Cooperatives‘ 52nd Annual Meeting. Vernon will report live from Birmingham, Alabama.

To learn more about the Federation of Southern Cooperatives or its 52nd Annual Meeting  Click Here!

To listen live online Click Here!
or Click Here! to Listen on your cell phone with Tune-in Radio