Community organizations and fast capital are integral to building and preserving affordable housing in the Bay Area Last spring in Oakland—an epitome for the nation’s affordable housing crisis—Bay Area for All (BA4A) was hoping to prevent two families in East Oakland from being displaced by an institutional investor. The investor had purchased the families’ homes […]

By Sasha Forbes Millions of people living in the U.S. are struggling to secure one of the most basic of human needs – a home for themselves and their families, but action to reinforce renters’ rights in several states is bringing hope in the fight to secure housing as a human right. Oregon, for example, […]

A conversation with Chancee Martorell and Ella Mendonsa When I first met Chancee Martorell, we were standing outside of the hard hat area in East Hollywood that would one day be Thai Town Marketplace, discussing the 13 years of work that had led to this moment. It was through a tour with the Strong Prosperous […]

A formal assessment by the Center for Community Health and Evaluation (CCHE) takes a look at SPARCC’s mid-initiative progress, with trends aligning with a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s (FRBSF) community development research team, Testing our Hypotheses. Read the full CCHE report here. Much like the FRBSF’s findings, this report: Highlights […]

The Strong, Prosperous, and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) has a bold mission to change the way regions grow, invest, and build. The initiative kicked off two years ago as a partnership across a range of funders and nonprofit organizations from across the country to create new approaches to equitable regional development, focusing on three areas […]

SPARCC is a bold, ambitious initiative to change the way communities shape the built environment to reduce racial disparities, build a culture of health, and prepare for a changing climate. The initiative’s long-term goal is to change the way regions grow, invest, and build to benefit all residents, and do not replicate past policies practices […]

“Why do we have to rely on developers to fix our problems when this is our own neighborhood and we own the land?” asks Renee Martinez-Stone of the West Denver Resistance Collaboration, one of the members of SPARCC’s Denver collaborative table. The West Denver Resistance Collaboration’s West Denver Single Family Plus (WDSF+) program is gaining […]

Over the past year and a half, SPARCC sites have demonstrated their ability to set bold goals to advance racial equity, health, and climate resilience in their regions and, perhaps more importantly, to respond, adapt, and identify the challenges and opportunities emerging through their work. As we reach a midway point in the program, SPARCC […]

By Brian Prater In the community investment sector, we have succeeded in offering innovative capital investments that are focused on one component of our work, such as affordable housing or small business. However, we have struggled to finance more complex solutions that address the broader strategic needs expressed by communities and their residents.  This narrowness […]

In honor of National Arts and Humanities Month, a “coast-to-coast collective recognition of the importance of culture in America,” we’re sharing insights gleaned from Liz Ogbu, a designer, urbanist, and social innovator who infuses arts and culture into sustainable design and spatial innovation in challenged urban environments. Ms. Ogbu joined the SPARCC sites at their […]