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Who Gets to Own the Neighborhood · Own the Block

0:05
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Own the Block.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: This is the episode that earns the name, folks, where we ask who actually gets to own the neighborhood and who makes that ownership possible in the first place and what type of money that takes.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: Joining me is Adriana Bizida Barber, Executive Director of Kensington Corridor Trust, where she's using collective ownership to build the neighborhood, build power, and preserve culture and affordability along the corridor.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm also joined by Noni Seton, co-founder and executive director of East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, EB Prect, a third-generation West Oaklander and cultural anthropologist who co-founded EB Prect to build cooperative economic power and slow racialized displacement in her own neighborhood.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Come on, come with me on this journey and let's redefine what ownership really means.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Adriana, when people hear community ownership, they usually picture residents owning property outright.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: So how does that picture match or not match what you've actually seen work at KCT?
1:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think most folks are so steeped in the traditional ownership rights, right?
1:20
SPEAKER_01: We're all taught that the way to build American wealth is through home ownership, and you have to have your name on the deed and the title, and that's what makes it yours.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: And at the trust, what we're saying is you can actually do that in community with others.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: You can co-own spaces, and the trust is how that works here in Kensington.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: So what we've done is we've built a perpetual purpose trust that's co-owned by folks in a specific geography.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And so the deed name that shows up is the trust, but the trust is co-owned by the folks in the space.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: And so it's just a little bit different.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: It requires some education, it requires some kind of unearthing and unpacking of what we're used to.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: Because we've been told that ownership means one very specific thing.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: And you know, collective ownership can mean so many different things.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I love that.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: So, Adriana, what do you say to people who push back and say that that's not a wealth-building strategy?
2:12
SPEAKER_02: How do you combat that narrative?
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think we are really intentional, but it it's a yes and, right?
2:20
SPEAKER_01: So we do think that folks should own their homes and build their own wealth at the family level, and we can co-own lots of other buildings together and build wealth at the neighborhood level.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: I think oftentimes people are stuck in a scarcity mindset and feel like everything has to be and or or it has to be black and white, no gray.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Community ownership creates space for a new path for us to determine what we want ownership to look like, what we want stewardship to look like, what we want wealth building to look like.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: We get to define that together.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think we at the trust are very intentional about ensuring that folks know that this is a real choice.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: It is a viable and very real choice that exists and that home ownership is still a part of that.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: And we're not saying stop owning homes.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: We're saying do that and let's build ownership together in the collective as well.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: So, Noni, let's, you know, you said building cooperative networks was a clearer path to change than a city council.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: What made you land on collective economic ownership as a strategy for slowing displacement in West Oakland?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, when I was running for Oakland City Council, the whole process is that you spend a lot of time in debate or public conversation with folks who are in positions of leadership, essentially sitting on the days representing district one through six plus at large.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: And um I ran for district three, um, heart of West Oakland, power seat, um, the port of Oakland, a big swath of uh the left side of the lake, and almost all of the legacy black community in West Oakland.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, our conditions have been pretty rough for quite some time, not to mention that Oakland, West Oakland has been a sitting duck for unchecked speculative development, which has contributed really to the rising rapid and racialized displacement of legacy-rooted Oaklanders.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And at the time when I asked the incumbent and other folks who were still sitting on the days why my city looked the way it looked.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And I was really kind of motivated to ask that question because after some time I really got fatigued with the sort of like easy platitudes that I found them putting out, like, hey, we're all in agreement here.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we're all friends here.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Actually, no, my friends would take care of my city, and the way my city looks, I don't see any kind of friendship uh coming from you all.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: So my question was, why does my city look the way it looks?
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And the answer that I got almost to the person was in at the time quite disturbing and disheartening, um, which was that hey, we can't do anything about the free market.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: We're essentially limited to running the city on grants and goodwill.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And um, besides for the sort of like disturbing wastefulness of the nonprofit industrial complex taking over the assumptions of city governance and management, also what surfaced for me is a subsequent question.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: So, are you saying that if I was a free market actor, I would not have to come to you for permission at all to develop my community?
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And in many things I saw told me yes, including the fact that if you at the time, um, at the time our mayor was Libby Shaft, but we know that politics function from one leader to the next very similarly at this point in our history, if you sat in the rotunda outside of the mayor's office, you saw commercial developers coming out of the mayor's office all day, very happy with plans under their arms.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And the question for me is like, why are y'all so happy when there are 7,000 people laying on the tarmac?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: What have you what do you have to be so happy about?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And the day after we did not take the majority in the District 3 City Council race, though we did take a 46% of the electorate, maybe 43.5%.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: I have to go back and look at the numbers.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: I continued what had been a building partnership with Mandela Grocery Cooperative, like one of our only grocery stores selling healthy, vital food in West Oakland in decades.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And I was particularly fascinated with their presence as my father was one of the last black grocers in West Oakland.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And through that relationship, which started kind of as a nostalgic relationship, I was fertilized about the possibilities of what cooperative ownership could do to not only create and rebuild a sense of control and civic sentiment, but also as collective economic actors, it became clear that then we could step forward collectively as market actors.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: When I'm learning at the same time as I'm being fertilized around cooperatives, that it is the market actor that gets the ear of the city as opposed to any other version of citizenship in Oakland and many cities like it.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, Noni, that brings me to another question.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: So EBPREC is structured as a cooperative.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: For listeners newer to this space, can you define what makes a model cooperative versus other forms of community ownership and why that distinction matters here?
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, to start with the definition of a cooperative, it can be a multifaceted definition, right?
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Just as a little C cooperative is a collective of people moving in alignment toward a shared goal.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: You are cooperating to reach some purpose or outcome.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: In the large C sense, we are a California cooperative corporation, which is a legal form of organization and an instrument that is defined by democratic governance, transparency, and a voting member body.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And so then the cooperative as an instrument becomes the legal vehicle where a group of people can work toward a collective outcome together.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: In our case, we're working toward a collective economic outcome.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: One of the main reasons we incorporated as a California cooperative corporation, as opposed to as a nonprofit, is because we knew that we wanted to control our own money and crowdsource our capital to move toward a vision that was not overconstrained by all the strings that come with capital through the government and the nonprofit industrial complex.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And under the nonprofit model, you are not actually able to solicit capital or rather sell shares or rather take investment legally.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Whereas under the cooperative model, not only are you able to do so, our incubating organization, Sustainable Economies Law Center, worked to change a critical law in 2014 called AB816, which raises the cap on which a non-accredited individual, that is a person with a gross worth of a million dollars or less, meaning you and our neighbors are able to invest up to$1,000 per person into a cooperative enterprise, which means that if you pull together 200 or 400 of your neighbors, then that means you have the seed to invest in property that's running at the rate you find in Oakland and West Oakland in particular, a million and a half dollars, three million dollars, where formerly the cap was$350, which took much more labor to aggregate a pot of capital that could really make an impact in a market like ours.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: Shaking off the shackles and changing policy.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let me switch up to Adriana.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: So KCT uses collective ownership to direct investment on the corridor.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: Who else had to be at the table to make that particular model work?
11:09
SPEAKER_02: And can you explain that?
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: So when the trust was first formed, there were four partner organizations on the ground in Kensington who were in some ways focused on the neighborhood, but none of which were solely and wholly focused on the corridor.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: And so we had a small business incubator and accelerator, we had the City of Philadelphia's public-private partnership for economic development, we had a private developer with B Corp designation, and we had a community development corporation.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And the four of them came together, looked at the state of the corridor, and really decided they wanted to tackle vacancy and the small business development.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: So we had a lot of small businesses that were lost to deindustrialization of the neighborhood and targeted disinvestment and then systemic policies like redlining.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And so they came together and said, hey, none of us are really focused only on Kensington Avenue, but we could potentially build a new model that would allow for infusion of capital that's directed by neighbors onto the corridor into a very specific geography that would help to reduce vacancy, it would help to attract small businesses, it could produce permanently affordable housing and permanently affordable commercial spaces, and then work on the built environment to think about social determinants of health, think about public policy and building power.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: And as we transitioned away from the founders and we moved towards neighborhood governance, there was a very quick realization that because we were working on a corridor, it couldn't just be the residents.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: It would also need to be the small business owners, right?
12:39
SPEAKER_01: So the ones that were here now and the ones that are potentially to come.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: And for several years now, our governance has been entirely neighborhood led and they make up the full governance body.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: So it's residents and small business owners alongside each other that are co-developing policy, that are creating decisions around what properties we'll acquire and redevelop.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: And then most importantly, they're the ones who are guiding our larger feedback loops back into the neighborhood to say, hey, what is it that you want this specific asset to be redeveloped into?
13:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: So most recently we opened up a small community grocery store.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: That's because our neighbors asked us to open a small community grocery store.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: We're super excited.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: It's been like almost eight weeks.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we were just in there for a meeting earlier today, kind of checking in on progress, trying to make sure folks really know it's there and it's being utilized.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's a direct result, right?
13:26
SPEAKER_01: So neighborhood say, this is what we want.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: We go find capital, we make the thing happen.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the small businesses that we're bringing to the table are all locally owned small businesses, right?
13:36
SPEAKER_01: So the operator of that community grocery store grew up just blocks away from where that grocery store is located now.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Love that.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: So, in your experience, who are the people really doing the invisible work of making a deal like that possible?
13:50
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of people in the background helping to make this work possible.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's the folks that we think of, which, you know, here in the neighborhood, our governance is very present.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: So everybody knows who's representing them on governance.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: They know who are holding down kind of what we'll call the day-to-day decisions and administrative work of the trust.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: But there's so many neighbors who get involved in design, who get involved in the small business attraction, who are helping to produce our waiting lists for folks who are coming into the affordable housing, who are connecting us with community partners, not just in this neighborhood, but across the city of Philadelphia.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then we have all of the kind of what we, I guess, would consider the traditional invisible labor, right?
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Like we have a property management team, we have maintenance folks, we have construction folks who most folks are not looking at on a daily basis, but who are deeply critical to our success here at the trust.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: And in those uh roles, we are again prioritizing folks from this zip code.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: So 19134 base contractors, 19134 folks who live here to take on the roles on the staff side, because you know, we're fully comprised by those folks on the governance side.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: And I think, yeah, I think we as an organization try to be really intentional to lift these folks up, but I know we could be doing a better job.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And I want folks to be seen and to receive their flowers for all of the hard work that they're doing day in and day out to make this work possible.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: I love that because that is often unpaid labor, unrecognized labor, and unfunded labor, to say the least.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be real clear, it's not at KCT, right?
15:16
SPEAKER_01: So at KCT, we believe time is a social justice issue.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: And so our like running frame is if I'm in the room getting paid, you're in the room getting paid.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And that's across the board.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: That's when we do design, that's when we're you know collectively ideating, that's when we're setting up strategy.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: So we do pay stipend for folks who are coming to build with us, and also our governance is paid.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: So anybody who's governing at the trust, you're getting paid double the living wage per hour, which for Philadelphia County is$46 an hour.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: It amounts to about a$1,200 stipend per year per void member.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: But the thing to keep in mind is that the average household mean income in this neighborhood is$30,000 a year.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: So getting another$1,200 at the end of the year for the time that you've put in to co-govern these collectively owned assets is meaningful.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we want to continue to do that.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: We just raise it as a part of our gen ops every year, right?
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Like we need capital to pay the people who are making the hard decisions in the background that oftentimes folks are not bringing to light.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, Tanoni's kind of broader point around the nonprofit industrial complex, that entire complex was built on white saviorism.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: And so people are like, oh, if you're on a board, you must do it as a volunteer, right?
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Like we are gonna just give up our time.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Everybody does not have that kind of time to just be sitting at a table, especially tables where we're being tokenized, right?
16:22
SPEAKER_01: And so exactly, right?
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And so our tables are predominantly black and brown, working class folks who are low moderate income, who are from this neighborhood, who have seen it in its various eras, right?
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Like super thriving all the way to completely disinvested and now in its resurgence.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: And I think we want to prioritize making sure folks are getting paid.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I think historically, very much so, unpaid labor and unpaid time, not a KCT.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: That is not how we roll.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: And we're really, really intentional about that.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's been since Jump.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: Love it, love it.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Noni, any thoughts on that?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: I think the only thing I would do is double click on the need to account for the privilege that time and resources offers for one to join in on collective economic action, right?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: This idea of like communities that can just come together and organize, they'll be fine.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And folks gotta eat and like pick kids up from daycare and finish their AA degree.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Whereas we try to recognize that inside of EB Prec with Ojan, Shearer, and I as co-founders, the reason we were able to give three years of practically free labor to stand this organization up was because of our privilege.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Because I was stably housed in my family home, because Shearer lived in a co-op, because Ojan was able to co-house and had a side business where things were flexible.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: So I will just clearly state that in order to combine collective economic action with outcome, there has to be some spaciousness when we're positioned in the posture of emergency and urgency, as is the case with economic oppression and rapid racialized displacement.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: You don't have three years to pull together bylaws.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: You don't have two years to find just the right uh leadership team that can navigate the race, the class, the gendered gamut that is to get to a stable, stood-up organization.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, it's a critical element of um liberation work that it is well resourced as folks find their collective goal that they are committed to move toward together.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we are going to say that again for the funders in the back who may be pressing fast forward through this section.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: So let's see.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: Let me spotlight Adriana for a second.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: So you spent your career at the intersection of housing, immigration, poverty, and race.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: How does power and not just property shape who's actually able to participate in this community ownership?
19:06
SPEAKER_01: This is a great question because so many people look at the neighborhood trust and see us as a real estate play.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: So they they see the trust, it's acquiring real estate, and they're asking all of these great questions about how many pieces of real estate are inside of the trust, what's the square footage for this, what's the square footage for that, how many small businesses have been attracted, how many units are online.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: And for us, all of that is meaningful and important, but it is secondary to the fact that the neighborhood trust model is a systems change model.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: It is a public policy advocacy model.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: And we, our theory of change here at the Kensington Corridor Trust is that those who have amassed land have amassed wealth, and those who have amassed wealth have amassed power.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: And we want to do that at a neighborhood level.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: We want to build power to change the systems and the conditions that the folks in this neighborhood are living in and that they've been experiencing as a result of things that were outside of their control historically.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: And we want to reduce any challenges or prevent any challenges by which folks can't access those changes.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: And so really demystifying policy, right?
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Like what does it mean to introduce a bill?
20:10
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to have it move through the floor?
20:12
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to go and testify?
20:14
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to get votes out of the committee and onto the general floor?
20:17
SPEAKER_01: We want folks to have deep understanding of that policy and billmaking process because they've been locked out, like by design and intentionally, historically, for decades, for centuries, for entire generations.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And our work as we see it is to use real estate as a lever.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: It is not the end goal.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure that I repeat that.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: The end goal is not amassing a ton of real estate.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: We're using that as a tool.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: The end goal is to change the conditions that people are living in and the set of choices that they have as a result of the policies that impact their zip code.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: Love that.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: Also, for the funders in the back underwriting a PRI, listen to the woman.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: She's telling you the truth.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Please do.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: By the way, you are both raising right now.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: What are your goals?
21:02
SPEAKER_02: Adriano, what are you um looking to raise this year?
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: This year, well, uh, we're in the middle of a reg D offering of$50 million.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: We've raised about 20 million so far, so we have 30 million to go.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: I want to be clear that this is, again, not an end goal.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: This is just this reg D offering.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: We're going to have to do additional reg D offerings in the future.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: $50 million is not going to endure centuries worth of disinvestment, stolen land, and stolen labor.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And so we are saying to folks, like, this is our current goal, help us meet this current goal.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: But I want to be clear with folks that it doesn't stop here, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_01: There are hundreds of millions of dollars that are invested into major cities like Philadelphia across the country every year.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And this is a drop in the bucket in comparison.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot of work to undo the harm that's been caused here.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Fifty million dollars is a starting point.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: Noni, what are you raising?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: We are We are in the middle of year one of a two-year capital campaign ending at the end of 2027.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, we are raising$10 million.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: We are about 3 million in so far.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And we are using that to advance our commercial and residential strategies.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: So we co-lead with Bay Area Lisc a corridor improvement project and on historic, on West Oakland's historic corridor, 7th Street.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: The project is called 7th Street Thrives, where we're improving 1.3 miles of a historic Black Business Corridor.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And we're doing that through the acquisition of several additional properties that extend our Esther's Orbit Room Cultural Revival project.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: So we're raising a little over 2 million for a 26,000 square foot lot that we want to turn into a food forest and a community hub.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: We're raising a million for the 7th Street Museum, which will be inside of our headquarters at the Esther's Orbit Room Cultural Complex that really demonstrates cultural and economic life on 7th Street before all of the imminent domain removals as a call to action for today.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: We're raising about a half a million for our radical organizing hub in North Oakland, formerly known as the Omni Commons, now rebranded Revival Hall, to continue to provide affordable space for arts culture bearers and organizers to really make a real intervention on transforming our city.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And always when we do a commercial purchase, we try to squeeze in two to three residential purchases along with it to continue to bring down the cost of housing and stabilize our lawyers, our teachers, our organizers.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So we are looking at raising a couple of million for a group called Blackyard and another group on 33rd Street that we're affectionately calling Phil's House right now.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: That's our raise, and part of that is in investor equity.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Another part of that 10 million can come in low interest and program-related investments and debt dollars.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: And another portion we want to raise in grant dollars and philanthropic dollars.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Love that.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay, because organizations like KCT and EBPREC have to move now at the speed of gentrification and displacement.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that that's why these funds on hand are really necessary.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: And the community-owned real estate industry, as it were, I'll call it an industry.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: It's not there yet, but we want that to be sort of front and center, I think, here in our conversations and in our learnings.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wanted to add something about that.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to just speak for KCT, but I I suspect it's similar, but I'll speak for EBPREC.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: You said something just now that we have to move at the speed of gentrification.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Actually, inside of EBPREC, we think that that is the trap, right?
25:19
SPEAKER_00: When you're moving more quickly than you are prepared to do so, it causes you to make economic and social decisions that actually exclude your larger goals of inclusion, of learning, of real development.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: When you move in a hurry, you move in the ways that conventional markets move.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's not to say that we aren't glad that three years ago we were sitting on a$2 million C fund where we could move very quickly and buy the bar in this historic restaurant cash, where we could move very quickly and lend a million dollars to a community hub that was in foreclosure.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: But we also know that what we actually need to do to be able to match this pace that some people describe as having to move at the speed of gentrification is to find those standing assets that actually that system doesn't even see value in.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Pre-market, distressed relationships, partnerships.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And that allows you to do what our points of unity assert, which is move at the pace of community and move at the pace of trust.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Even if that is accelerated, but there's a different presumption around what acceleration looks like and what one what steps one takes to compete with conventional market actors.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: And you know, that's something that I've said on this podcast a few times.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: It used to be that we moved at the speed of trust, and now we move at the speed of gentrification.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: So you have educated me on why that can be a pitfall.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: Adriana, what do you think about that saying?
27:04
SPEAKER_02: Because I've I've said that a few times in different rooms, and I've gotten different reactions.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: I'll pick up with Nori's thread.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: So I think we at KCT, I'll speak for KCT, a lot of similarity to EB Prex.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: It has been so interesting to watch our journey over the last seven years, right?
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Like so many of us in like this collective ecosystem space, the EB Prex of the world and the Gills and Boston Yujima, we all emerged in the last like 10 to 15 years, some of us, you know, more nascent than others.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think all of us had this journey at the beginning where we had to do the base building work, we had to do the trust building work.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And if you take a look, and I will not name names, but if you take a look out into the ecosystem.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not going to name anything.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: But if you look out in the ecosystem and you look at things that are maybe not as moving, not moving as values driven as I would say some of our closest partners, like EB Prec and others are, they kind of dissolve or like don't last as long, or are forced to move some of their assets back into market.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: And none of us have had to do that, right?
28:06
SPEAKER_01: None of us, like I'm calling like the my closest homies, right?
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Like the friends that I know that like if tomorrow something happened, I would call and be like, hey, hey, hey, please get on a plane, please come help me, right?
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Like we all took the time and continue to take the time that it requires to get folks to a place of understanding, not agreement, not consensus, a place of understanding.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Because if people don't have the information and the basic set of like, how much will this property cost?
28:34
SPEAKER_01: What will not acquiring it mean?
28:35
SPEAKER_01: What will acquiring it mean?
28:37
SPEAKER_01: How quickly do we have to move if we want to?
28:39
SPEAKER_01: How does it impact the larger portfolio?
28:41
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean from a policy standpoint?
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Who gets to live and occupy this space, right?
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Like all of that has to be accounted for before we move in the direction of accuracy position.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think we at Pensington Court of Trust, we spent the first several years moving really slow.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And this was a criticism from our funders at the beginning.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: They were kind of just like, we don't really see what's happening.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm trying to build the base for future work, right?
29:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, I want my governance to be so tight, like so, so tight, that there's never any question of what neighborhood governance looks like and what is possible, right?
29:11
SPEAKER_01: Because that was a criticism of our model at the beginning.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: People were like, you're gonna let a bunch of people who are not real estate experts make a bunch of decisions about millions of dollars.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: You mean black and brown people.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean black and brown, low-income, working class folks for whom many homeownership will never be an option.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm talking about.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Those folks are making multimillion dollar decisions every single month, right?
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And doing it well and doing it with excellence, right?
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Doing it with excellence and can hold their own in any capital room.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: Can really hold their own.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: They can tell you what a capital stack is, they can tell you about our PRIs and our MAIs, they can tell you why we infuse grant capital in to hold an equity line.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: They can tell you all of that.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: They can tell you about every single parcel of real estate we've acquired, why we purchased it, why it was a good idea for community ownership, what we haven't done, what types of businesses we attract and why, what we don't let in and why.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: They have deep understanding and knowledge of these things.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, now we can work to be competitive with the market.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm still not sure that it's at the pace and rate of gentrification.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm being outpaced every time I turn around, right?
30:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's just the realities and the facts.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: But what I'm not being outpaced in is the trust that I've built here, the leadership that we've invested in, the community that stands behind community and collective ownership as if it were the first option and will continue to be the first option always.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: It is just a very different cadence, right?
30:34
SPEAKER_01: It is very much rooted in the hey, us three, we had a conversation, we have a deep understanding.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Who are we missing?
30:42
SPEAKER_01: Who do we need to go get?
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Who needs to be a part of the decision making?
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Now let's move to the place where, all right, do we have enough capital?
30:49
SPEAKER_01: Does it make sense?
30:50
SPEAKER_01: I think so many times people are expecting collective ownership projects like ours to move at the pace of market solely.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: I can't do that.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm entirely neighborhood governed by design, right?
31:01
SPEAKER_01: So, like, I have to go back.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Right now, we're in the process now of acquiring our single largest asset to date.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: So it's 157,000 square feet of commercial mixed use real estate.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: We're super excited about it.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: We took a whole year to negotiate the terms of that transaction.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: We've now taken a whole nother year, so two years from junk, to raise the capital required to close.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Could we have done it more quickly?
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Would it have been in right alignment?
31:26
SPEAKER_01: No.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: Would it have been fully embraced and loved by this neighborhood?
31:30
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Would we have built the right capital stack?
31:33
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Right?
31:35
SPEAKER_01: So we took the two years that it gave.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: And we thankfully had a seller who was willing, who said, yeah, let's give it the time.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Like if it's gonna take us a year to negotiate and a year for you to raise, we can hold on for that long.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody can hold on for that long.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: We're hyper aware of the graciousness or whatever this relationship has offered us.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: But we didn't rush into it.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: And I think because we didn't rush into it, the community is better off for it because now the buy-in is all the way up.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: We have spent the time it requires us to get government buy-in too for the first time ever.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: The trust has never worked on that.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: We've never worked on getting government capital into our projects.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: And for this very specific project, the Department of Commerce here in the city of Philadelphia gave us a million dollars towards our$20 million acquisition.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: If you had told me even a year ago that that was going to happen, I'd be like, No.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: And here I am going, I want to be best friends with the folks at the Department of Commerce, right?
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Like these folks understood and they moved quickly and nimbly and they created a pathway for us, and they said we want to support community ownership in Philadelphia, we want to support community ownership in Kensington.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: And now we have this whole new set of friends who understand our work and who are committed to being a part of it as partners, not just from a funder perspective, but truly partners.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what can we do?
32:43
SPEAKER_01: What pathways can we open?
32:44
SPEAKER_01: What doors can we open?
32:45
SPEAKER_01: What connections can we make?
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Right?
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Because we did the base building work, we did the trust building work.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's across all of the different perspective groups.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the neighbors, it's all the folks who are around us that make this work possible too.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm gonna spotlight Noni for a second and ask you um what's a role in this ecosystem that almost never gets named or credited publicly, but that both of you would point to as critical infrastructure for making these kinds of deals happen.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: And after Noni, I'm gonna go right back to Adriana, see what you got.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are a lot, but I would actually say that the policy protocol and planning role is quite invisible, right?
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Where when a lot of nascent groups really ask, come to EB Preck and ask us like, where does your actual secret sauce land that allows you to be vetted by some of the most difficult to pass through funds, at least in California, if not nationwide.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And that you we have a we have sort of like a three-legg stool among my founders, right?
34:06
SPEAKER_00: And one of my founders that most people don't even know, co-founders doesn't don't even know is a co-founder, is a person named Shira Shahan who does our policy and protocol.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: So there's so much invisible administrative labor to managing funds, to reaching investors that have large pots of capital to move, to even be approved to sell securities federally, that um comes in that quiet culture build moment when you're building bylaws, when you're building out roles, when you're building out SOPs or rather workflows that you don't see when you see our colorful comms materials or our the really interesting interviews that folks like me do.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: All of that is very invisible to folks.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: There's this middle level that I think they do know that there's a nut to crack around building strong spreadsheets, um, cash flow plans, staffing plans, but there's this other level that is actually the invisible infrastructure that makes neighborhoods, organizations, and societies move.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: Adriana?
35:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually gonna pick up on the comms piece.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: So, Noni, one of the things that I've been thinking about lately is like I'm not a comms person, so I want to name that.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Let me start there, right?
35:30
SPEAKER_01: So, like, it's not me.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: It's not me who's making us look all shiny and pretty and the it's not me.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: And I think I know I've had this conversation with Sierra at Boston Yujima Project, right?
35:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's the folks in the background who are activists, who are artists, who are thinking about communications and colors and language with deep intentionality to make sure that folks really understand what we're doing, that folks have clarity about the path forward, that folks know when there's a decision point.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: That's all on the comps team, right?
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, that has really nothing to do with me.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Because if you ask me to slap some colors up on a thing, like I might could got you part of the way, but I'm not getting you to the end zone.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm the person who's like, fold the paper ten times, that's a great idea.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, tenfolds.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: You want someone to have to go through tenfolds to get the information?
36:15
SPEAKER_01: It's just not me.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like there's this unspoken, but oftentimes seen element of communications, right?
36:23
SPEAKER_01: We don't talk about who are the folks that are in the background that are staying up to make the thing work, to make sure the magic is out so that people can see the visual of KCT.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: We're just talking about the final piece.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: But there's labor.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: There's like real people behind that who are using their artist activist mindset to think about the design and the beautiful layers that people need to be able to hold and to have, right?
36:43
SPEAKER_01: Like the physical and the digital to think about this work and to envision, you know, preferred futures and have self-determination be at the forefront of their mindset.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: It's just not me.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Like those people are fantastic and we love them.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: Love it, love it.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so one thing that I'll say is that I've had the opportunity to look under the hood, so to speak, of both of your organizations and been able to underwrite them.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: What is one thing that funders get wrong about your organizations that you would like to clarify?
37:21
SPEAKER_00: The get wrong is is maybe a longer conversation.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: I'll say that what is missed, because we're we're back to this previous question of the invisible labor of standing up and stabilizing work such as ours.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think that what is missed is the complex layers of doing good, if you will, old school, older school term, doing good while doing the work of building an entity that can compete with conventional actors and conventional markets, right?
38:01
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, there is some conventional presumptions that the investment capital we bring in, such as you see with the international non-governmental complex, with the nonprofit governmental complex, that investment capital, that debt capital, is at some percentage expended on our administration, which is really where there's a lot of drain-off in the nonprofit or in the doing good field for various reasons, because of the way instruments function, because of the way that capital functions.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things we do is even in that 10 million that I named that we're raising, that whole 10 million is reserved specifically for acquisition itself.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: We raise a completely separate, philanthropic, that is, grant-based budget to run our operations, to do the culture build for our community, to do the organizing for our community, to do the real estate and project development for our community, to field build, to nurture relationships, right?
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And so we know that often the prohibitive cost for our community members to be part and parcel to an acquisition are because many of those administrative costs are offloaded onto the cost of the project itself.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: And so we very consciously and strictly divide off the cost of project build, stand up, and launch from the interest rate, the cost of the dollars to purchase the acquisition.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: So although that's not quite your question, I think that is one of the sort of like, if you will, magic formula that we lean into, which definitely puts stress on me to raise the budget, but also takes stress off, or a more unconventional word, is de-risks our community to be able to focus on servicing community instead of servicing debt.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: We basically service their debt through our nonprofit and philanthropic labor to hold that cost within our operations practices.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree with that.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: So KCT and you know, Kinstan Quarter Trust, just like EB Preck, we're raising integrated capital or blended capital, right?
40:24
SPEAKER_01: We have to have the philanthropy alongside the debt dollars.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think something that is missed, and it's an opportunity that we're hoping more folks will jump on, you know, the train for, is when you deploy a million-dollar loan to KCT, put that alongside a grant, right?
40:37
SPEAKER_01: So that we can deploy the million dollars.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't magically get deployed.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a missed opportunity that exists for folks to really lean in.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: We we have a lot of folks who come to the trust who are like, oh, we only do debt.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Blanket statement.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Or we only do grant making, blanket statement, right?
40:53
SPEAKER_01: And so I think finding more space for folks to see both the complexity of our models, right?
40:59
SPEAKER_01: Like these are complex infrastructures that we've built in order to combat traditional norms of real estate ownership, policy movement, neighborhood wealth building.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: And they require complex solutions.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's really not that complex.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: It's just when you pass me some debt, pass me some grant dollars so that I can deploy your capital and put it to work for you so that I can then generate the revenue required to repay your debt dollars, right?
41:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's uh there's just space.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: I think there's space for folks to find and deepen that understanding.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I'll just name on like the underwriting side of this is I think oftentimes folks are looking at our models and they're like, oh, well, you're seven years in.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: You should have X amount of revenue coming from your rental portfolio towards your larger um, you know, portfolio.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me see your rent roll.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Let me see your rent roll.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: I just had this conversation with someone yesterday and like bless their soul, right?
41:50
SPEAKER_01: Like they're looking at this from the traditional lens that they've had for underwriting coming out of banking or coming out of the CDFI space or whatever other, you know, private equity, whatever space they're coming from.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: And KCG just isn't that, right?
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Like we've been taking the work to do acquisitions intentionally.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: We prioritize very specific labor that is from this neighborhood, which means sometimes we have to slow down a little bit there too, and that's okay.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: We're completely fine with that.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, we have like, you know, some rental revenue increases over the years, but it's not 100% of our portfolio.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Like our rental revenue is not 100% covering our operating costs, right?
42:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna take us some time to get there.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: And so I think, you know, in the underwriting of it all, I really want to encourage folks, and I do encourage folks to see this as something different, to see this as an opportunity and to move away from risk framing.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, Noni brought up the de-risking element.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: I think so often we see folks who are trying to categorize this as a traditional investment opportunity, right?
42:46
SPEAKER_01: This is not that.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: This is you investing in a self-determined future in Kensington, which means it's gonna get a little messy sometimes.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna move a little slow sometimes, right?
42:57
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be very intentional with what we do and don't do, who we do and don't partner with.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's just there's just so much space.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: I think there's so much space and so much opportunity for folks to evaluate these deals differently and to really think about the risk of not investing.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: That's what we ask folks to frame all the time.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: So, sure, you see a traditional financial risk.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: I could see that for you, right?
43:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm not blind or naive to what we're building here.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: But also the risks that I'm evaluating day in, day out, like clockwork, you know, Sunday through Saturday, catch me 24-7, is what is the risk of not doing this work and what is the risk of not investing in Kensington?
43:32
SPEAKER_01: What happens, right?
43:33
SPEAKER_01: What's the future we design for or allow to be created if we don't make investments for community ownership, if we don't do the systems change work, if we don't do the neighborhood wealth building work, what's that risk?
43:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm far more interested in that risk than I am in the traditional capital risk that so many folks tried to apply the lens for to our work.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: So at Transform Finance, I'm really sort of asking that question as I wear multiple hats.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Who gets to own the neighborhood?
44:02
SPEAKER_02: Who gets to own the block?
44:04
SPEAKER_02: So what say you in 2026?
44:08
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with Noni, who gets to own the neighborhood?
44:12
SPEAKER_02: Or who would you like to own the neighborhood?
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, funny that you mentioned that, particularly around West Oakland or the area they call Lower Bottoms, because it's now in serious contestation again.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have now just rented space in American Steel for a data center in the Lower Bottoms.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Their counterparts who are now working to form a bid that includes certain areas and excludes other areas, I'm sure you can imagine the texture of those inclusions and exclusions.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: And that is a real, a reality check in the face of what 7th Street Thrives and EBPREC has been working toward on the 7th Street Corridor, the historic Black Business Corridor in District 3, where our vision is that it is culturally and spatially owned by legacy Oaklanders, by Black Oaklanders, by folks who are and have worked in the black arts movement tradition in order to leverage what Oakland is most known for, which is its cultural texture and its cultural communities that have produced national acts that have produced innovation that spread across the planet.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: So that is really the vision, and we are running the hurdle of rent blight.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: That is rents that are out of scope with both income and market models, struggle with neglected infrastructure that demands that you show up with a billion dollars because the actual owner of the space may not be willing to improve the infrastructure.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: So we have a goal of local ownership both culturally and spatially, and we are confronted with um city and municipal models that continue to prioritize market actors over a cultural and local vision.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: That's where we are today.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: More data centers.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Noni.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: Adriana, on to you.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, uh, so our most recent capital campaign, which was specifically for the acquisition of this 157,000 square foot building, the name of the campaign was Own the Block.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: And it's that the Kensington community will own the block, right?
46:52
SPEAKER_01: So we want folks who have historically called Kensington home to be able to do set in the future by choice, right?
46:58
SPEAKER_01: So if this is a neighborhood you want to be in, we want there to be somewhere affordable for you to live.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: If this is where you want to have your small business, we want there to be somewhere for you to do that affordably as well.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, we are really committed, and and as we always say, unapologetically committed, right?
47:13
SPEAKER_01: That's we are unapologetically committed to ensuring that this neighborhood owns as much of its own real estate as it can so that it can build wealth, so that it can build power.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: And we're doing that trajectory over time at the pace and speed of trust.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: And if that happens to align with market, fantastic.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't, that's okay too.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: All right.
47:33
SPEAKER_02: So if a listener walks away from this episode with one richer, more accurate picture of how a block actually gets owned, what do you each most want that picture to include?
47:49
SPEAKER_02: What is the secret sauce?
47:52
SPEAKER_02: What what needs to be there?
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with you, Noni.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, in our case, coming from West Oakland, um, and knowing that uh a big dynamic of economic deprivation has to do with the lack of leverage around um cultural models, cultural legitimacy that bring revenue class cash flow and rebuild ecosystems, is that what has to, in our estimation, drive pathways of collective ownership is the cultural vehicle.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: That we're living in a market that is really in the mindset of tear down and rebuild.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: And if we remain in the mindset of locating, rehabbing, and mobilizing deep, neglected cultural assets that activate energy, memory, history, and imagination and solidarity, that is the pathway back to collective economic ownership.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: Because what we do know is that commercial seeking developers don't have a model for the ground floor.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: All of their models are temporary and only built to activate the second floor up.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: But we know that collective ownership or even stable society is built at the ground floor.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: So if we continue to grab the cultural spaces at the ground floor that resonate with our community's history and hope for future, that is enough of an acceleration to be able to stand next to these new actors who come and go unceremoniously and at will.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: Adriana, final word.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Nani.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, I feel like we are wanting folks to really be mindful of the fact that those closest to the challenges are the most prepared to make the best decisions to work our way out.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, when we first launched a trust and we transitioned to neighborhood governance, we heard from so many folks about their fears for us, right?
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Like a bunch of folks who don't know how to do real estate, right?
50:13
SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned during this time, a bunch of folks who are not real estate developers, who don't have expertise in real estate, many of whom are not homeowners, are going to govern over some collectively held assets.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: And our answer was and continues to be yes.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: They are the best equipped to make these decisions because they can tap back into the neighborhood, they can tap back into the networks and say, is this what we want?
50:36
SPEAKER_01: Is this what Kensington wants?
50:39
unknown: Right.
50:39
SPEAKER_01: And when we hear yes, then it's okay.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: And how do we make it happen?
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Right?
50:42
SPEAKER_01: How do we collectivize the strategy to move nimbly, quickly, with capital, whatever the thing is that needs to happen?
50:51
SPEAKER_01: But after we've gotten the buy-in, after folks have said yes, after they themselves have determined that that's a decision that they want.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think that decision point and that proof point has just held so true over the years for the trust that as we think about replication and scaling across the country, it's one of the number one questions we're asking folks, right?
51:09
SPEAKER_01: Is is your neighborhood already organized?
51:11
SPEAKER_01: Right?
51:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, do neighbors already come together on their own to talk about power in place?
51:15
SPEAKER_01: Because if not, the neighborhood trust model is probably not going to thrive there.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: Those are just the facts, right?
51:21
SPEAKER_01: This is not just about real estate.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: This is not a real estate play.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: Real estate is a tool, it is a lever because capitalism has deemed it so.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: And we are going to take it and we are going to decommodify it and we are going to collectivize it, and we're going to make sure that it benefits the masses, not the few.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: What an incredible point to end on.
51:43
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Adriana and Noni.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: This has been an amazing discussion.
51:48
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you both.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your time.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for what you do.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for being in the trenches.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Ownership has never been just about who holds the deed.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: It's about power and about the people who build the infrastructure to make that power possible.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: Adriana and Noni, thank you for helping us name that infrastructure and give it the credit it deserves.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: To our listeners, the next time you hear who owns the block, we hope you're asking bigger and better questions.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: Until next time, this has been on the block.