What we’re about
Are you troubled by the cycle of housing speculation and its effect not only on the possibility of making a home but on your local community? Instead of a good neighbor who comes to borrow a cup of sugar, are you besieged by leaflets, flyers and email from people who want to sell or buy your home? Are people in your city more interested in a good deal than a good neighborhood?
The purpose of this group is twofold, maybe three. First, it's to help people to recognize and expose the dirty tricks and harassment that speculators, "investors," and some neighborhood block coordinators and city workers use to "turn over" properties.
Second, it's to begin talking about how to end an unhealthy cycle of gentrification that benefits speculators more than you or me. We can talk about alternatives to selling single-family homes, even Proposition 13 homes that need repair, like creating cohousing, co-ops or land trusts.
And third, it's to bring good people together to create housing communities, however small. I hope, for example, that this group will be a safe place for those of us whose ads are maliciously tagged on Craig's List, to meet roommates who want at least some part of the same thing.
Me? I'm an unconventional woman in her sixties who grew up in the area (U.C. Berkeley graduate and writer-type with background in the arts) and would love to find savvy co-opers, collaborators, cat ladies and creatives, tough women who know their rights, people who are progressive and kind, to create and contribute to cohousing, maybe a community of writers, artists or poets with a common purpose, a well-lighted place, and from time to time, a shared table. I have room to bring at least two collaborators into my childhood home in Albany and, since my ads are continuously flagged on Craig's List, I'm hoping to meet them by meeting up. There's room for an ADU in the backyard that would allow for more. Come build something with me, come build something with someone, just come to share information and to watch out for others by building community. Housing is for people; not markets.