News:
Sponsored by and in Partnership with!
Our Urban Farm Stand project has been sponsored by Council Member Tretheway’s office and in Partnership with Sacramento Mutual Housing Association. We would not be able to bring you this very exciting event once a week if it was not for the support of these groups and the funding they have helped us to secure.
From the 1/3/2008 issue of the Sacramento News & Review:
Alchemy and Augury
The Alchemist Community Development Corporation may have a hard time topping last year's successes. The nonprofit organization inaugurated an Urban Farm Stand in Alkali Flats and was awarded a 30-month grant to expand the stands to new locations in Sacramento County, bringing healthy produce to people who may not have access otherwise. Still, co-founders Wendy Carter and Lisa Nelson see even more good times ahead.
"The grassroots movement for sustainable communities will grow stronger. Community gardens will become more common throughout the city and front-yard gardens will dot the urban landscape," they said.
True, Carter and Nelson predict the declining housing market will continue to have serious implications in 2008.
"The effect of the troubled housing market will become visible at the neighborhood level, especially in older neighborhoods and low-income communities."
But new approaches to housing-including land trusts and "limited equity co-ops" will emerge in response to the growing numbers of bank-owned, boarded-up houses and devastated families.
Read the full article here: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=609874
Projects & What’s Ahead:
Affordable Housing Cooperatives: Education & Pre-Development Work
If you’re like most people, the words “housing cooperative” bring up visions of obligatory pot-luck dinners, cluttered common areas, and shared bathrooms. While a few cooperatives may fit this image, a housing cooperative is in fact an ownership model, and simply means that residents own a share of the total property rather than an individual unit of housing. Cooperatives throughout the country include all types of housing, from single-family homes to 100+ unit apartment buildings. This model is uniquely suited to enabling low and moderate income people to participate in home-ownership, and can help secure a local supply of permanently affordable housing. Alchemist is working to organize educational workshops on cooperative housing, and is currently evaluating several properties with the potential for new construction and/or rehabilitation to create cooperative ownership opportunities. If you are interested in getting involved as an organizer or future member-owner of a housing cooperative, contact Wendy at wcarter@alchemistcdc.org.
Thanks to:
A Special thanks to Brian Fischer, Mid-Town Grid and Dad’s Sandwich shop for providing the food for our fundraising event, to SMHA for all of their continued support, to all of our volunteers for helping making our event run smoothly, and to everyone who attended. You’ve helped make the event a success for Alchemist!