SACRAMENTO, Calif. — North Sacramento homeowner Robin Moore was waging a 16-year battle against tall weeds and trash on a vacant lot next to her house when she was seized by a vision for the plot of land.

Gone were the garbage and invasive plants. In their stead, she pictured a tiny orchard and garden beds bursting with fruits and vegetables — an “Apple Heights,” she said, in a nod to El Dorado County’s popular Apple Hill.

She imagined families left shell-shocked by homelessness finding healing in a verdant, tranquil retreat. She anticipated fellowship during movie nights and Easter egg hunts and impromptu lessons in gardening in her West Del Paso Heights neighborhood.

Her vision proved infectious: The owner of the empty lot leased her the space. Nonprofits, businesses and churches mustered volunteers and donated funds to clean, clear and fence it. Maximilian Rosa, a North Sacramento native with Sierra Service Project, designed the garden and secured plants and fruit trees. Her husband James ”mostly didn’t quibble” when money vanished from their savings envelope.

All the hard work to beautify the spot nearly fell apart this year, however, when the owner of the vacant lot demanded almost double the rent, $1,300 a year, a sum Moore said she couldn’t afford to pay.

Even if the lot owner agreed to continue leasing at the old rate, Moore said, she wasn’t sure how much longer he would be satisfied. She was feeling a bit unsettled by this challenge one Saturday last March when she headed to a meeting of the Del Paso Heights Community Association.

A chance encounter there would supply Moore with just the ally she needed to ensure that the communal space that she and dozens of volunteers had created for homeless families would be sustained for generations to come.

The Del Paso Heights board had invited Tamika L’ecluse, the leader of the Sacramento Community Land Trust, to come and talk about what the organization, founded in 2017, is striving to do.

While conservation land trusts buy up wild or pastoral lands and preserve them for eternity, L’ecluse explained, community land trusts acquire and preserve affordable housing and treasured urban green spaces for the benefit of peoples who have historically faced discrimination in property ownership.

Although this idea is new to Sacramento, L’ecluse said, she’s already gotten interest from property owners who see land trusts as a way to support housing affordability for low-wage earners and people on fixed incomes.

How Sacramento land trust makes its acquisitions

L’Ecluse said the nonprofit Sacramento land trust has a variety of ways to make purchases. While some residents make bequests or cash donations, she said, others sell their property to the land trust below market value, making it a tax-deductible donation.

A progressive philanthropic group known as Common Counsel Foundation also is building a pool of millions of dollars to assist communities of color in achieving housing justice and equitable land access. The nation’s largest endowments have contributed, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the James Irvine Foundation and the California Endowment. It was Common Counsel that provided the funding to purchase the garden.

As L’ecluse laid out the mission of the Sacramento Community Land Trust at the Del Paso Heights meeting, Moore couldn’t believe what she was hearing: “I was like, ‘You do what?’” I didn’t even know what Sac CLT was. I didn’t even know she was a speaker. In the back of my mind, I’m wondering if that will work for us.”

After the meeting, Moore made a beeline to L’ecluse, and the two began a conversation that ended this summer with the Sacramento Community Land Trust acquiring the communal garden next to Moore’s home.

Now, the land trust is drawing up a lease that allows Moore to rent the property over the next 50 years at a fraction of the price she’s paying now. Moore, who will serve as the steward of the land, said a Sac CLT board member who goes only by the name Pinky adopted the garden as a passion project and worked with her to clear every hurdle.

Community land trusts maintain ownership of the land they acquire, L’ecluse said, but if there are homes on the property, they sell those structures below market value to families or individuals who meet income eligibility and other criteria. A portion of rent and mortgage payments go into a fund to cover property improvements or maintenance costs.

The Sacramento land trust is negotiating property purchases now in Oak Park and Del Paso Heights that either have homes or will have them, but it has not yet sold a home. Over in the Bay Area, though, the Oakland Community Land Trust was formed in the wake of the 2008 housing crisis that led to foreclosures there and all around the state of California.

In 2009, the Oakland City Council allocated funds from the Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program to allow the land trust to preserve affordable housing in the city, according to the Oakland land trust’s website . At the time, newspapers were reporting on how private equity funds were swooping in to buy up foreclosed homes, reducing housing stock for individual buyers.

The Oakland land trust acquired its first distressed home in 2009 and more between 2011 and 2013, remodeling them and then putting them up for sale.

Public school educator Shekinah Samaya-Thomas said she and her husband Christopher Samaya-Thomas, a laborer, acquired one of the houses in 2013 after months of trying to find a place in their price range. Samaya-Thomas has since become a passionate advocate for community land trusts, serving as a director on the Oakland land trust’s board.

She described her 1100-square-foot home, built in the 1920s, as a cozy two-bedroom, one-bath craftsman with original wood flooring and all the modern, efficient lighting and appliances. The couple acquired it for $132,000 in 2013, she said, but it appraised for $164,000 at the time.

A formula tied to the Consumer Price Index determines how much the couple’s equity in their home will grow, Samaya-Thomas said, and right now, it sits at about $100,000. If they wish to sell the home, the land trust acquires it and then goes through the application process with the next buyer. The home always sells at below market value.

Samaya-Thomas said she and her husband love the idea that other workers with modest incomes will get a shot at an affordably priced home. This opportunity can change life trajectories, Samaya-Thomas said.

“It literally allowed us to plan a wedding and get married,” she said. “Because of housing affordability and living costs in general, we were not able to fulfill that commitment to each other until we had stable, affordable, long-term housing. The land trust gave us that.”

Land trusts combat urban decay, gentrification

The land trusts work to prevent the urban decay that can happen when landlords fail to invest in rental homes, L’ecluse said, and they ensure that the gentrification of long-underserved neighborhoods doesn’t lock low-wage families out of home ownership as prices escalate beyond their reach.

Moore said she and her husband had tried to buy the vacant lot next to their home but had learned the price was well out of their reach. The land trust’s acquisition has brought her peace of mind, she said. This garden, Moore said, is an amenity for families experiencing homelessness who are living in a free, emergency shelter in her back yard.

Families have their pick of fresh food, said Sierra Service Project’s Maximilian Rosas, who designed the garden, oversaw the lot’s transformation and now manages maintenance. He pointed out tomatoes, okra, eggplant, plums, raspberries, nectarines, peaches, cherries, almonds, apples, pomegranate, oranges, limes, loads of herbs and more. There’s also outdoor furniture and a grill.

Moore acquired four tiny homes, one of which houses a kitchen and two bathrooms that families share. She had them placed at the rear of her property and created what she calls the Safe Harbor community.

She founded a nonprofit, WEforce of California, to oversee it and teamed up with another nonprofit, Family Promise of Sacramento, which ensures that homeless families can remain together rather than separating them between men’s and women’s shelters.

Family Promise rents three of the tiny homes from WEforce, and it screens families to ensure there’s no drug use or other causes for concern in their backgrounds. Moore, who used to volunteer for Family Promise, said she sees this new arrangement as a different kind of volunteering for the organization.

When Moore’s guests tell her about roadblocks they are encountering, she said, she sometimes makes calls on their behalf or she provides them with contacts who can assist them or she enlists help from Family Promise Executive Director Marsha Spell or the case managers who work with her.

Family Promise and Safe Harbor are built on the idea of neighbors helping one another, Moore said, and in a way, the Sacramento Community Land Trust is operating out of a similar sense of compassion.

Aubree Petersen Sevilla, who lived in Safe Harbor for three months earlier this year, said her husband Oscar Sevilla enjoyed chilling out in the garden and grilling up food for their family.

“My daughter, who’s autistic, she loves being outside,” Petersen Sevilla said. “She loves the bugs, the ladybugs, the butterflies, so I just thought it was such a great place to find peace.”

A portion of the rent Moore will pay to the land trust will be saved in an account and will go toward making improvements on the land — adding water, electricity lines or structures, for instance, L’ecluse said.

“I’d like to add a resource center on the property where tutors can come, where music lessons can be held, something that is an amenity not only for our small Safe Harbor community but also for the community at large,” Moore said. “I’m hoping that the Department of Human Services comes in and offers classes on how to navigate the Medi-Cal system. It’s just removing barriers where you may not think they are, but if you ever try to find Medicare or your Medi-Cal doctor on the telephone, you know that’s a barrier.”

And, of course, Moore said, the land could be an opportunity for additional housing for homeless families — if she can get a variance. As the crow flies, she said, the property is within 500 feet of parkland, the Sacramento Northern Bikeway, and no homeless shelters can be constructed in such a zone. If anyone actually tried walking to that bike trail, though, they would have to travel well over 500 feet, Moore said.

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