PLEASE REGISTER HERE
Join the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative for our general interest meeting! We will spotlight BIPOC-led projects in New York City to own land and buildings for community benefit, and organize to support them.*
We will feature:
Educated Little Monsters: an all black and brown youth movement bringing you the truth, through all forms of art, from dance, music & theater. Support them here & follow them on facebook here.
Mayday Space, an organizing hub and neighborhood resource in Bushwick, Brooklyn for arts, activism, and community events for all of NYC. Mayday is collectively-run, curates social justice programming, and makes their space available to grassroots groups at an affordable sliding-scale. You can become a supporting member here, and follow them on facebook here.
For our current members: It’s been a while since we last met together. Let’s meet to regroup, share updates, and strategize about what we can do to create a NYC free of real estate speculation. We’ll be updating you on our progress, and the legal and organizational infrastructure we’ve created.
We’ll also be hosting a mutual aid skill share / skill swap for NYC spaces. Do you organize a space, or have interest in stabilizing and supporting community organizations? Do you have resources, skills, or supportive labor to offer for mission-aligned groups? Come and share!
*WHAT IS THE NYC REIC?
The NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative is a cooperative that seeks to finance community-controlled commercial real estate without selling out to capitalism. We have already obtained regulator’s approval to raise investment funds from our members for any property that is consistent with this mission: “combating community deterioration and advancing long-term stability, diversity, vibrancy and cohesion in New York City neighborhoods most affected by disinvestment and displacement.” We have created a co-op with bylaws that support one-member, one-vote decision-making about investments. Anyone who lives in NYC can easily become a member.
Our intentions include:
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.
Let’s take back New York City from the vulture capitalists!