june 17, 2007

seattle collective trust meeting #3¶

NU house
Claudia facilitator, marc notes

(next meeting: house in the woods, saturday july 21, 11am-1:30pm)

present:
Stephanie and Jessie (haphazard house); Brenna (mississippi coop, portland
collective housing); Abie, marc (egfs); Michael, Robert (house in the
woods); Lynn (CHIPS housing in Rainier Valley); Claudia, Ray, Lindsey (NU
house); Steve (sherwood coop); tamara (sunset house, evergreen land
trust); Bryan (bob the house); Red, Linda (cascade shelter project);
Karla (wedgwood coop). whew!

Brenna talked about Portland Collective Housing:

• they are 7 years old, own two houses. one houses includes commercial
  space they rent cheap to a collective book store. they are currently
  incorporated as a public benefit corporation and working on 501©3
  federal non-profit status.
• their financing was a combination of community loans, individual gifts,
  and some bank loans in individuals’ names. they are working on renewing
  some loans, refinancing others because of interest hikes and looking at
  expanding in order to tap into large-scale loans.
• they are interested in acting as an umbrella organization for other
  collectives seeking to buy. they are interested in land trusting, but
  don’t seem to be a match for portland community land trust.

Red and Linda told us about the Cascade Shelter Project:

• it’s been around since 1975, when low-income tenants organized to buy
  their housing from the church that owned it before. it is three houses
  with four apartment units each, and a shared courtyard.
• they’ve gotten financing from cascadia revolving loan fund, the safeco
  foundation, and the macauley fund (?) which no longer exists, as well as
  some grant money. the buildings are paid off; dues collected go toward
  maintenance, taxes and insurance.
• they are incorporated as a state non-profit. their bylaws prevent the
  sale of the buildings unless the money is to be used to buy more
  low-income housing.

Lots of discussion followed, i tried to capture the ideas mentioned about…

• Ownership structures:
  • state non-profit: easy to get in washington
  • federal non-profit 501©3: much harder to get, but means fewer federal
    taxes and that donations made to the organization are tax-deductible,
    allows access to more grants and loans
  • condo ?
  • tenancy in common
  • LLC
  • Community Land Trust: Homestead is the CLT in seattle; provides
    down-payment assistance, CLT owns land, person/family owns house and
    agrees to a resale cap to keep housing affordable, can’t rent out.
    focused on first-time homebuyers of the single-family persuasion.
  • cooperative business (washington state)
  • there were some ‘variations on a theme’ conversations…
    • one land trust owning multiple homes
    • individual homes becoming
      their own separate ‘land trust’
    • one umbrella non-profit with
      individual autonomous entities owning the homes…

• Funding ideas:
  • a key club or seed fund that a group of collectives would pay into to
    fund one project at a time, rotating over time till all members are
    covered. could be for specific (e.g. downpayments) or general (e.g.
    collective emergency fund) purposes.
  • dues-paying membership organization
  • credit union
  • zero-interest bank
  • cascadia revolving loan fund
  • the social justice fund (previously a territorial resource)
  • historic building preservation funds?
  • LIHI, CHIPS, Plymouth housing group?
  • the library might have someone to talk to about grants

• Ideas for moving forward:
  • let’s continue to invite people from different houses, related
    organizations, funding institutions to these meetings to get more ideas in
    the mix
  • let’s work on figuring out what our shared values are without getting
    bogged down, and keep taking steps forward
  • start a seed fund
  • look into grants and other fundraising
  • let’s put together a ‘business plan’

FOR NEXT MONTH MEETING (july 21, 11-1:30, house in the woods):

• Brian will work on a list of different groups that are working on
  collective ownership of housing to include organizational structure,
  funding sources, where they’re at in the process (e.g. renting and
  interested in buying, in a land trust and wanting to help others to buy,
  etc), needs and resources to offer.

• Abie will coordinate getting some info on the organizational structure and
  funding ideas we talked about at the meeting. If you can volunteer to
  look into any of them, let him know (abie@riseup.net). Abie will
  facilitate the July meeting.

Thanks to NU house for hosting!
see you next month at House in the Woods! (they’ll send directions)
marc