Community Conversation: Local Experiments in Land Trusts

City Life / Vida Urbana

How can we use land trusts as a tool to undo centuries of housing segregation and discrimination? Join local leaders in activism, finance and public policy for a community conversation connected to the new Undesign the Red Line Interactive Exhibit. 

Panelists: 
Lisa Owens is the Executive Director of City Life / Vida Urbana, a housing justice organization that works for racial, social, and economic justice and gender equity by fighting displacement and building community power. Lisa has been actively involved in building grassroots organizations and supporting local and national social movement building for over 25 years.  A seasoned educator, she also occasionally teaches courses at area colleges on structural racism, US social welfare policy, participatory action research, and nonprofit management and leadership. Lisa serves on the boards of several social justice organizations connected to community control of land and housing, including: the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust, Alternatives for Community and Environment, the Resist Foundation, the Right to the City/Homes for All National Alliance, and the Right to the City Boston network.
Deborah Frieze is founder and president of the Boston Impact Initiative, an impact investing fund focused on economic justice, which means investing in opportunity for all people—especially those most oppressed or abandoned by our current economic system—to lead a dignified and productive life. The fund takes an integrated capital approach, combining investing, lending and giving to build a resilient and inclusive local economy. Deborah is co-author (with Margaret Wheatley) of Walk Out Walk On, an award-winning book that profiles pioneering leaders who walked out of organizations failing to contribute to the common good—and walked on to build resilient communities. She is also founder of the Old Oak Dojo, an urban learning center in Boston, MA
Nika Elugardo is the MA State Representative of the 15th Suffolk/Norfolk District, including the neighborhoods of Brookline, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, and Roslindale. She has over 20 years of experience in community and economic development with public, private, and nonprofit leaders in communities of color, Nika earned her B.S. from MIT in Urban Planning, an MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government with concentrations in political advocacy, leadership, and peace and security, and a J.D. from Boston University Law School with externships in tax law, human rights, and corporate social responsibility.
Through organizing her community, Alma Chisolm was able to place her building and five others onto the new Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust (CLT). She's a member of City Life’s Leadership Team and as a Community Land Trust Ambassador, Her current professional role as a Quality Assurance Technician and team leader at Mt. Auburn Hospital, and especially her experience as a single mother of five have enabled her to practice and refine skills of building unity, listening, and teaching which she brings to her community leadership. As an Ambassador, she reaches out to the other tenants living in homes on the land trust, in order to educate them about community ownership of housing and land, identify common needs and goals, and invite them to participate in governing the CLT.

"The Beehive" at Boston Architectural College

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Community Conversation: Local Experiments in Land Trusts

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Community Conversation: Local Experiments in Land Trusts

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