2026 Ca CLT Network Conference
About this Event
This year’s conference will welcome CACLTN members, partners, and allies for a program featuring community ownership and CLT content, highlighting statewide member CLT developments, skill sharing, and policy advocacy updates & coordination. We are excited to gather in person to take stock of our growing movement and continue building the relationships that underlie our work. For CLTs: please invite your CLT residents to attend !
The Conference will begin at 8am on Thursday, Sept 3rd @ the Terra Gallery, 511 Harrison Street, San Francisco CA 94105, and will conclude at 4pm on Friday, Sept 4th. Participants should plan on arriving in San Francisco by Wednesday, Sept 2nd.
Please check out updates about event and about the event.
Agenda Sept 3
🕑: 08:00 AM - 08:20 AM
Check-in & badge pickup @ Mer (downstairs), main entrance // Recoger Carnet
Info: Only for participants registered to attend transit, bus, and walking tours. If you're not registered to join the tours please check-in closer to 11am. For Transit, Walking and Bus Tour participants, please arrive on time, pickup your badge and head to the Tours table to confirm your tour (first come, first serve), and the tours will start meeting with tour leads and loading and/or heading to Bart as early as 8:40am.
🕑: 08:00 AM - 08:40 AM
BREAKFAST // DESAYUNO
Host: Bi-Rite Catering: updating menu soon
🕑: 08:00 AM - 08:40 AM
Tours: Meet your tour leads // Tours: Reunase con sus lideres de tours
Info: Transit & Walking Tours: Meet tour lead(s) in the Patio outside Bus Tours (2 buses): Board your buses on Harrison St Walking Walking History Tour: Meet tour lead(s) in the Patio outside
🕑: 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Transit (BART) & Walking: Mission District // Tour en BART y a Pie: Mission
Host: Teresa Wang, SF CLT
Info: Stops: 3235 16th St, Clarion Alley, and 18 Adair St. Since 2024, SFCLT has been bringing together supporters, partners, policymakers, and community members to see what permanently affordable, community-owned housing looks like in practice. These tours are a powerful way to connect with the real stories behind our work: residents, neighbors, and communities building a more stable and equitable San Francisco together.
We'll begin with an overview of SFCLT's work and the community land trust model. From there, we'll meet 14th St resident leaders who organized a tenant union in their building and led the effort to move their homes from corporate ownership into community control. We'll then continue to 16th Street to meet longtime residents who used San Francisco's groundbreaking Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) to take their homes off the private market and secure permanent affordability for future generations.
🕑: 09:00 AM - 11:45 AM
Transit (BART) & Walking: Housing Co-ops // Tour en Bart y a Pie: Cooperativas
Host: Mayerling Castillo, SF CLT
Info: Stops: Merry Go-Round - 2976 23rd St, Balmy Alley, and Pigeon Palace - 2840 Folsom St. Join us for a walking tour of the 24th Street corridor and visit two SFCLT housing co-operatives. Meet the people making community ownership a reality in San Francisco!
Stop 1: Acquired in 2014, this 14-unit building was saved from Ellis Act eviction when SFCLT stepped in to purchase it. Residents now collectively govern and operate it as a self-managed housing cooperative, with SFCLT holding the land in trust for long-term affordability.
Stop 2: ""The Pigeon Palace"" - SFCLT outbid five speculators at public auction to preserve this building for its longtime residents. Through a partnership with the City's Small Sites Program and Boston Private Bank, the building was rehabilitated and kept permanently affordable. In March 2025, the community celebrated its 10th anniversary.
🕑: 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Bus & Walking Tour: SF Chinatown // Tour en Bus y a Pie: Chinatown SF
Host: Junli Dai, SF CLT
Info: Stops: Columbus United Co-op (CUC) - 53 Columbus Ave and Northern Ca Land Trust property - 735 Baker St. SFCLT’s first project, Columbus United Cooperative, opened in June 2009 at the edge of Chinatown. The 21-unit mixed-use building is now a limited-equity housing cooperative serving primarily low- and very low-income Chinese American families. Originally facing demolition and eviction, tenants organized with SFCLT and community partners to save their homes. Through extensive collaboration, the building was purchased, rehabilitated, and converted into a resident-run cooperative. Today, former tenants are now co-owners, ensuring permanence, dignity, and community stewardship.
🕑: 09:00 AM - 12:00 AM
Walking SF History Tour // Tour a Pie: Historia de San Francisco
Host: Kristen Villalobos, SF CLT
Info: TBD - updating soon
🕑: 12:45 PM - 01:45 PM
LUNCH // ALMUERZO
Info: Menu: Updating soon
🕑: 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM
Pickup Interpretation headsets (Spanish & Mandarin) // Audifonos (Espanol)
Info: Please pickup interpretation devices for Mandarin & Spanish before the program starts at 1:45pm // Por favor recoja sus audifonos de interpretacion al Espanol antes que el programa empiece a la 1:45pm
🕑: 01:45 PM - 02:05 PM
Land Acknowledgment // Reconocimiento de Tierras
🕑: 02:05 PM - 03:20 PM
WELCOME SESSION // BIENVENIDA
Host: Nazir Abuyounes, Long Beach CLT
🕑: 03:20 PM - 03:30 PM
BREAK // DESCANSO
🕑: 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Exploring Shared CLT Infrastructures // Explorando Infraestructura Compartida
Host: Omar Carrera, Canal Alliance
Info: Moderator: Sarah Scruggs, SF CLT; Speaker: Jarrod Russell, CLAM. This panel will explore the process of developing shared infrastructure in a specific geographic area with the purposes of 1) increasing permanently affordable housing for low-to-moderate income households, and 2) growing the capacity and impact of existing and emerging CLTs and small community-focused developers. CLT, community and government stakeholders that have been part of the process of exploring the establishment of a shared infrastructure through a CLT Network in Marin County will discuss:
- The successes and challenges of this exploration
- Lessons learned thus far
- Funding/financing needs
- Key stakeholders to involve in the process
- Equity considerations"
🕑: 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Learnings from Rio: The Fight for CLTs in a Global Context // Intercambio Rio
Host: Tarcyla Fidalgo, International Center for CLTs (Brazil)
Info: Earlier this year, CLT practitioners from eleven countries gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the first Global CLT Peer Exchange. What they found, across wildly different contexts, was that the fight for community land looks remarkably similar everywhere.
This session brings together practitioners from Brazil, Canada, and the United States who have been in deep conversation about what CLTs look like beyond the Anglo-American model — in Black communities in Canada and in informal settlements across the Global South — and what those contexts have to teach the movement here. Using the Rio exchange as a jumping-off point, this session invites the California CLT community into a conversation that is already underway, and asks: what does international solidarity actually look like in practice, and what does it ask of us? Additional speaker: Joanne Cheung, RichmondLAND
🕑: 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Black Liberation, Reparations & Racial Justice // Liberacion Negra & Justicia
Host: Princess Robinson, Richmond LAND
Info: co-moderated by Bee Coleman PBF Housing Policy Fellow and Tamika L'Ecluse, Sacramento CLT. Continuing conversations from last year's conference and the June 2026 Meeting the Moment #3 workshop, on where CLTs fit in the conversation on Black liberation, reparations and housing justice. What do we understand and agree on about organizing, advocacy and lobbying? What are we willing to commit to in order to honor the roots of CLTs from Black farm workers, support Black-led CLTs, and change the material conditions for Black folks across California.
🕑: 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
BREAK // DESCANSO
🕑: 06:00 PM - 09:30 PM
RECEPTION // RECEPCION
Info: @ Terra Gallery (upstairs) // @ la Galeria Terra (2o Piso) Tonzantin Mexican Catering, Menu: UPDATING soon
Agenda Sept 4
🕑: 08:00 AM - 09:00 AM
BREAKFAST // DESAYUNO
Info: Tonantzin Mexican Catering, Menu: UPDATING soon
🕑: 08:00 AM - 09:00 AM
Funders' Session // Sesion de Financiadores
Host: Emily Duma (Moderator), Common Counsel Foundation
Info: @ Mer North (downstairs). Funders' breakfast: Please pickup your breakfast and meet at Mer (downstairs), the room closest to Harrison St.
🕑: 09:00 AM - 09:30 AM
Morning Session // Sesion de la Manana
Info: @ Terra (upstairs)
🕑: 09:40 AM - 10:50 AM
Tenant Power to Community Ownership: CLTs & Frontlines of Housing Justice
Host: Luis Zeron, SF CLT Resident
Info: Community land trusts are increasingly moving beyond acquisition and stewardship into deeper alignment with frontline tenant organizing. This panel centers the voices of residents who lived that shift firsthand: people whose organizing turned a housing crisis into permanent community control. They'll be joined by leadership from the San Francisco Community Land Trust (SFCLT) and Beverly Vermont Community Land Trust (BVCLT), who will share their own perspective on what it takes to build power alongside resident leaders.
Grounded in case studies from San Francisco and Los Angeles, this conversation features two residents who fought against corporate landlords and helped bring their own homes into community ownership through organizing. One comes from SFCLT, where a tenant union laid the groundwork for a CLT acquisition. The other comes from BVCLT in Los Angeles, offering a parallel story from a different regional context. We'll hear directly from residents about organizing work.
🕑: 09:40 AM - 10:50 AM
Roundtable: Partnering for Land Acquisition & Long-Term Stewardship
Host: Brett Heeger, Impact Matters Law
Info: Administracion Responsable de Fideicomisos // Join us to learn and share strategies about how community land trusts can work with partners such as community organizations and residents interested in leasing CLT-owned land to bring land into and maintain community ownership and creative uses. This workshop will be in two parts: First, we’ll lead a technical discussion of tools that can govern this relationship, including MOUs and ground leases. Second, we’ll facilitate a negotiation exercise where participants will be invited to navigate a simulated partnership challenge between a CLT and a housing cooperative.
🕑: 09:40 AM - 10:50 AM
Project Lending for CLTs 101 // Prestamos a Proyectos de Fideicomiso 101
Host: Alex Cabral, Grounded Solutions Network
Info: This session will support CLT staff in deepening their knowledge about how to prepare for raising capital, with a specific focus on understanding the loan process. We will review different types of project loan products, the steps in a typical loan process, the typical documents requested during diligence and underwriting, and common financial metrics that lenders use to evaluate loan readiness. We will also review common challenges to structuring a loan and accessible solutions, with case studies if time permits.
🕑: 10:50 AM - 11:00 AM
BREAK // DESCANSO
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Project Financing & Fundraising for Operations
Host: Nadia Mora & Olga Melo, Mountain View CLT
Info: Financiamiento de Proyectos & Recaudacion de Fondos // Project financing and fundraising for nonprofit operations: partnerships with philanthropy, government and private sector. This panel will share and learn about practical tools and lessons learned for project financing and fundraising for sustainable operations to achieve long term CLT stewardship and goals.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Asset Management, Portfolio & Organizational Sustainability
Host: Michael Claproth, Enterprise Community Partners
Info: Administracion de Bienes Raices & Viabilidad a Largo Plazo // Non-CLT affordable housing organizations that have been around for decades in California are struggling with rising property operating costs and are reckoning with difficult decisions about how to move forward. This panel is intended to support CLTs in making acquisition and asset management decisions today that will help them avoid some of these same challenges in the decades to come. Panelists will share learnings, best practices and industry standards around sustainable real estate portfolio development and asset management.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
CLTs in Rural Agricultural Areas // Fideicomiso en Zona Agricultural Rural
Host: Phoebe Eisenbeis, University of Montana, Long Step Farm
Info: There is tremendous interest by agricultural communities in using the CLT model to address urgent housing and land access needs in CA and beyond. This panel focuses on three key themes that illuminate some of the work and solution-making in this area:
1) Housing for farmers and farmworkers, and issues for narrative change that open up greater resources for housing on/near ag land;
2) Zoning and land use issues that are common obstacles and require policy navigation/creation
3) The growing field of CLT and Conservation Land Trust partnerships that open access to new tools, ecosystem support, and address historic exclusion for people of color to equitable land access.
While the panel speakers and moderator bring a wealth of practitioner experience, participants will be invited into a shared conversation for pooled knowledge, learning and networking.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
CLT Resident Mixer // Encuentro con Residentes de Fideicomisos
🕑: 12:30 PM - 12:40 PM
GROUP PHOTO // FOTO GRUPAL
Host: Pete Belkin Photography & Videography
Info: Meet @ Terra upstairs promptly so you will not miss the yearly group photo !
🕑: 12:40 PM - 01:30 PM
LUNCH // ALMUERZO
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:40 PM
Project Lending for CLTs 102 // Financiamiento de Proyectos Fideicomiso 102
Host: Heather Bromfield, Enterprise Community Partners
Info: Building on the material covered in the Lending for CLTs 101, this session is intended to support CLT staff in deepening their knowledge about how to secure loans at different phases of the preservation project cycle. Our speakers are lenders who originate acquisition/rehabilitation loans and permanent loans. These speakers will share case studies of properties that they have lent to, the criteria they consider when evaluating projects, and information on how CLTs can build relationships with lenders and best position themselves as borrowers during the different phases of a project. The session is likely most useful for CLTs who are ready to acquire their first property or who have already acquired at least one property and are thinking about a future conversion to resident ownership.
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:40 PM
Land, Legacy & Leadership: Guiding Youth as Next Generation of Land Stewards
Host: Rosario Luis, El Sereno CLT
Info: Tierra, Legado y Liderazgo de la Juventud como Administradores Responsables de Terrenos // Land is more than property—it is identity, history, and the foundation for community stability. Yet many young people grow up disconnected from land, ownership pathways, and the systems that shape housing, stewardship, and community control.
This open space session invites participants to explore how youth engagement in land stewardship can cultivate leadership, cultural continuity, and long-term community resilience. Drawing from experiences in community land trusts, grassroots organizing, and community development, the session will center dialogue around how communities can intentionally prepare young people to become future land stewards.
Participants will collectively examine how access to land knowledge, governance structures, and community ownership models can empower youth to shape the future of their neighborhoods.
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:40 PM
CLTs Building More than Housing // Fideicomisos Construyendo mas que Vivienda
Host: Yaynicut Franco, Wukchumni CLT
Info: This workshop strives to challenge the “traditional” CLT model that largely focuses on housing. As CLTs strive to bring housing for our communities, we can explore the idea of housing where the work is done as well. What would it look like for CLTs to purchase buildings and commercial spaces? What opportunities can be birthed in these CLT-owned spaces? Similar to CLT housing models, CLT-owned commercial buildings can be used to give the community housing to spaces that they would not have otherwise - workshop incubators, resource hubs, third-spaces for community events. Join us as we explore ownership of commercial buildings (and how to do it!), what these buildings can be used for, and the impact that can be developed inside them. Moderated by Jacky Rivera, CA CLT Network
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:40 PM
BIPOC Mixer // Encuentro BIPOC
🕑: 02:40 PM - 02:50 PM
BREAK // DESCANSO
🕑: 02:50 PM - 04:00 PM
Land Reform: State Policy Recommendations can Uplift CLTs Farmland Solutions
Host: Darlene Franco, Wukchumni Tribe
Info: Reforma de Tierra: Poliza Estatal // California’s small and underserved farmers are being pushed out by rising land costs and a severe lack of affordable housing. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) offer a powerful alternative: they remove agricultural land from the speculative market and keep it permanently affordable for beginning and underserved farmers—for both farming and housing. This workshop highlights the grassroots organizing efforts behind agricultural land reform in California, drawing on the recently finalized state Ag Land Equity Task Force recommendations—a 150-page roadmap for systemic change. We’ll explore how grassroots organizing, coalition advocacy, and political pressure can serve as key pathways to expanding agricultural CLTs in ways that truly benefit rural communities. Speakers include farmer advocates, community members, and a former state Ag Land Equity Task Force member, all working toward land reform policies that increase community ownership of agricultural land.
🕑: 02:50 PM - 04:00 PM
From Study to Action: Shaping the Future of Social Housing in California
Host: Nicole Montojo, Othering & Belonging Institute
Info: Estudio a Accion: Transformando el Futuro de Vivienda Social en California // This will be a working session to inform the development of a major 2027 campaign to turn the state's SB555 Social Housing Study into reality. With this study due to be completed later this year, the time is now to ensure that community ownership and resident governance gets built into the DNA of a future statewide social housing ecosystem. Whether you are currently steeped in or new to social housing policy design, this workshop will be a space to collectively learn about, build upon, and strategize around an emerging state policy agenda and campaign plan for community-controlled social housing. What are the key elements of social housing policy we should focus on in 2027, and what does our experience of stewarding social housing locally tell us about how that policy should be designed? How do we hone the most powerful message to mobilize our base and build a broader movement for social housing?
🕑: 02:50 PM - 04:00 PM
Financial Leadership for Boards // Liderazgo Financiero para Juntas Directivas
Host: Mariesa Kubasek, Nonprofit Finance Fund
Info: Board members can better serve community land trusts and community ownership organizations when they are well-versed in financial management and understand their roles as stewards. This workshop reviews how boards can help guide nonprofits by thinking big-picture when identifying strengths, gaps, opportunities, and risks; by understanding financial health and performance; and by supporting an organization through times of change and uncertainty.
🕑: 02:50 PM - 04:00 PM
CLT Board Mixer // Encuentro de Juntas Directivas de Fideicomisos
🕑: 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM
CLOSING REMARKS & Event Feedback // COMENTARIOS FINALES y Encuesta
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 129.89 to USD 487.37
