Advancing Community-Controlled Housing Preservation through the New Bay Area Housing Finance Authority
Published by: Urban Habitat and the Bay Area Community Land Trust
The newly established Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) presents a vital opportunity to expand community-controlled housing, such as community land trusts and limited-equity housing cooperatives, across the Bay Area. BAHFA is the first regional housing finance authority in California and allows for regionality funded regionally funded efforts to mitigate the nine-county Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis. BAHFA will use a “3 Ps” approach, which includes protecting tenants, preserving affordable housing, and producing new affordable housing.
This paper focuses on the importance of affordable housing preservation, especially via community-controlled models, and offers key recommendations to deeply research and develop during the business planning process and then implement through BAHFA’s pilot programs and long-term programming.