Intentions

Here are some intentions that guide our co-leadership team:

  • CONSISTENCY WITH THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT:
    A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. We act in accordance with the cooperative values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity and follow the seven cooperative principles.
  • SUPPORTING THE COMMONS:
    Some forms of wealth belong to all of us–we all contribute to their value and depend upon them for survival. The City itself is a strong example. These commons must be protected and stewarded for the good of all. The act of strengthening this framework and reality is called commoning. Please note, this concept largely comes from indigenous people of this continent, whose understanding of a living land predates real estate.
  • TRANSFORMING THE RACIAL HIERARCHY:
    Settler colonialism and slavery were founding processes of the United States, through which white people amassed wealth through enclosing former indigenous-stewarded land commons, and through exploiting BIPOC. Ongoing processes, from the prison industrial complex, to racist land-use policies like red-lining and Urban Renewal, to neglect of public housing, have furthered these racial hierarchies that are fundamental to our nation’s founding, resulting in white supremacy, wherein “the three Ps–property, protection, and pleasures–are distributed to white people first” (Dr. Miles Grier). We aim to facilitate reparations to BIPOC and land restoration that we hope can help heal these horrible legacies, and along with them, ourselves.
  • FINANCING THE COMMUNITY LAND TRUST MOVEMENT:
    The Black-led community land trust movement of the 1960s created a framework for permanent affordability and community stewardship of land, starting with New Communities. We aim to provide financing for community land trusts.

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