LISC Bay Area, Great Communities Collaborative and the San Francisco Foundation recently released a brief outlining how philanthropy can support tenant-centered housing preservation. I’ve been learning so much about how lending and capital can be used to support tenant-centered housing preservation since I joined LISC, and wanted to share a few of those learnings here.
First, a quick definition: In this context, preservation refers to acquiring and rehabbing unsubsidized affordable housing. Tenant-centered preservation specifically focuses on acquisitions that often start with tenants getting organized and advocating collectively for better housing conditions and fair rents. Tenants may partner with affordable housing developers, land trusts, or community development corporations who can assemble the financing to buy their buildings. Or they may organize their own ownership structures. Tenants are at the heart of equitable, anti-racist preservation strategies—their voices and decisions must have weight throughout the acquisition process.
In all cases, capital resources are needed to acquire buildings and move them out of the speculative market. But, of course, capital alone isn’t enough! Capital must be oriented towards the needs and realities of real projects and organizations on the ground. And tenant-centered capital needs to fuel the projects that tenants are organizing around, and the specific developers that tenants choose to partner with.
Philanthropy and funders have two critical approaches that make them unique in the capital funding space.
One is building and nurturing organizations over time. Philanthropy at its best supports strong organizations and strong ecosystems, and funders know that organizational strength and stability is a core outcome of any successful grant. Funders can incorporate this approach as a critical component of moving capital – using capital as a tool to support not just an individual project but also an organization’s longevity and stability.
The other is an appetite for innovation and tolerance for risk. Philanthropic resources are well-suited to invest in new models, pilots, and the replication of pilots at different scales, with different partners and geographies. A tolerance for risk also comes with a tolerance for projects that are challenging, even messy, where it can take time and mistakes and learning to get it right. Those “learning successes” are just as important – maybe even more important – as an easy win. Funders should take note of these experiences and highlight the learning for the field.
To learn about the capital tools philanthropy can use to further this work, read the brief to learn more! And sign-up for our newsletter to get the word about future learning opportunities. Through our work with the Partnership for Bay’s Future, we’ve learned a lot about what it takes to support successful community-led acquisitions and we’re excited to continue to share our learnings with the field.