Community

Effort to Revive Oakland’s Stalled Project to Sell Affordable Homes

Published

12 years ago

September 22, 2013

Concerned housing activists are meeting with the city on how to revive a stalled community land trust designed to create hundreds of affordable houses in Oakland.

Created to great fanfare in 2007, the Urban Strategies Council and other Oakland community-based organizations formed the land trust to provide affordable housing in Oakland.

The Oakland Community Land Trust (OakCLT) was awarded $5.025 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) funding from the City of Oakland. By acquiring and rehabilitating vacant foreclosed homes, the program was designed help stabilize struggling Oakland neighborhoods and provide affordable homes.

OakCLT acquired its first bank-owned foreclosure on Olive Street in 2010 and officially launched its Neighborhood Stabilization Program Homeownership Project.

Of the 17 foreclosed homes that OakCLT purchased, five have already been sold and another five have been rehabilitated, and the process of finding qualified buyers is underway.

However, analysts estimate that the program must expand to 200 homes to reach the break-even point to be self-sustaining.

But the program has stalled since interim Executive Director Ann Griffin resigned and the defunded Oakland Redevelopment no longer exists to serve as a platform for first time homebuyers.

These problems have resulted in the agency temporarily coming under HUD scrutiny.

Concerned that speculators continue to dominate Oakland’s housing market, members of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) met recently with Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell and Housing Director Michele Byrd to discuss how OakCLT can be revived.

ACCE wants to know why the revolving account was not being utilized to purchase more homes and how the Oakland Housing Counseling “ROOTS” program can be better utilized to find qualified buyers.

Housing Director Byrd acknowledged that the project had stalled with the loss of the board director and the failure to sell homes to qualified buyers, which has resulted in blight issues.

“After four years the program is working more smoothly. We’re getting more banks on board, and HUD is off our backs,” said Byrd.

“With the market coming back, we anticipate more qualified buyers. However, we still need an administrator for the program. Until that happens, we can’t move effectively move forward.”

Faced with the difficulty in reaching OakCLT’s goal of acquiring 200 homes in order to make the program self-sustaining, Byrd said that there would need to be more tours, perhaps by joining with Operation Hope to do more financial counseling.

Acknowledging that the initial $5 million grant was not enough to acquire 200 homes, she said, “We reaching out to banks to donate properties to us. So far Bank of America has donated one home to the Land Trust.

“Also with improvement in the economy, we’re hopeful that we’ll find more qualified buyers,” she said

OakCLT has two additional homes in the process of entering the land trust through a partnership with Youth Employment Partnership (YEP), which is rehabilitating the houses as training opportunities for at-risk youth.

OAKCLT hopes to expand this strategy to bring more permanently affordable homes to Oakland residents while creating career pathways for young adults.

“At a time when Oakland’s flatland neighborhoods are being bought up by investment firms and hedge funds, the land trust is a countervailing tool supporting community ownership and stewardship of homes and land for the benefit of Oakland’s low and moderate income residents,” said Steve King of the Urban Strategies council.

OakCLT anticipates selling all of its existing homes by the end of 2013.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 2- 8, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 2 – 8, 2025

Published

2 days ago

July 7, 2025

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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

Published

5 days ago

July 3, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.

The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.

“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.