By Felicia Mello : CalMatters – excerpt

Nine years ago, tenants of the Pigeon Palace at 2840–2848 Folsom Street in San Francisco faced a dilemma. Their aging landlord, who had long rented at affordable rates, was unable to continue overseeing the place. Instead, a court-appointed conservator took steps to auction off the building.

Because Pigeon Palace is in the popular and increasingly expensive Mission neighborhood, the residents feared a new owner might dramatically raise their rents — or kick them out altogether. So they crowdfunded $300,000 and gave it to a nonprofit called the San Francisco Community Land Trust, which combined it with loans from a bank and the city to place the winning bid of more than $3 million. The trust then rented units back to the tenants at affordable rates.

Much of the political debate about California’s housing crisis has focused on building new units. However, community land trusts, a method of preserving existing affordable housing that dates back to the Civil Rights Movement, have quietly been gaining steam.

The number of community land trusts — nonprofits that buy up land and then sell or rent the buildings on top of it to residents with low-income — has tripled in California since 2014, according to the California Community Land Trust Network…(more)