Episode 70: Vital Arts and Northern California Community Land Trust

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Vital Arts and the Northern California Community Land Trust Programs

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“When the private equity money comes in, that's when unfortunately you see the human equity and the cultural equity and the racial equity tends to disappear”- Ian

With the health and financial impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and a low inventory of housing, especially live work and warehouse space, the focus of this week’s episode is on housing for our artist's community members. Our featured voices are the executive consultant for Vital Arts, Kathryn Reasoner, and the Executive Director of the Northern California Land Trust Ian Winters who share about their work with our artist's community to develop solutions to deal with the pandemic’s ongoing impact on their housing.

Kathryn Reasoner - Vital Arts

Kathryn Reasoner has won awards and recognition for her advocacy on behalf of artists in society and for her strong leadership of Bay Area institutions such as di Rosa and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her professional activities have been diverse and wide-ranging, including service on international, national, and regional arts boards, juries, and commissions. She taught for two decades at art colleges and universities in the US and Japan and continues to pursue broad interests in the arts and philanthropy as an independent consultant to individuals and organizations.

Ian Winters - Northern California Community Land Trust

Ian has served as Executive Director of the Northern California Land Trust since early 2002 and is a long-term CLT & coop resident. Professionally he has over 10-years of experience in sustainable construction and architecture as well as community activism and organizational development. He trained as a photographer/filmmaker and art/architectural historian at Tufts University and the Boston Museum School and graduate architecture/design work at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture. Outside of the CLT world, he maintains an active life as a working artist.

Vital Arts

OUR STORY
Vital Arts was formed to offer a constructive, creative response to the destructive tragedy of the Ghost Ship Warehouse fire: A response that addresses the needs of the affected communities, while serving as a model for creative places worldwide.

We are long-term residents, artists and art-lovers, families, and professionals. Galvanized by the death of his son Jonathan in the Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire, Edwin Bernbaum launched Vital Arts with long-time friends Beth Jay and Thomas Dolan. We are now proud to be supported by many families who share our commitment to securing safe, affordable arts space and see these efforts as a positive way to honor those who were lost.

OUR MISSION IS TO HONOR THE VICTIMS OF THE GHOST SHIP FIRE BY ENSURING ACCESS TO SAFE, AFFORDABLE SPACES FOR ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS TO LIVE, WORK, AND PERFORM.

Vital Arts envisions a world in which groundbreaking arts and culture that are essential for the continued health and vitality of society at large are recognized and cultivated. We seek to bring this about by implementing projects to meet the needs of low and moderate-income artists in the Bay Area.

We believe that if we are successful, our efforts to preserve and support a strong innovative creative arts community can provide models and seeds that can be replicated nationally and internationally. The Ghost Ship fire in Oakland highlights the tragic human price that rising rents and housing costs, and increasingly scarce safe spaces can extract. Artists driven to create and drawn to a community of like-minded individuals should not be expected to pay an unthinkable price, nor should those who love them.

Northern California Community Land Trust

NCLT is a Community Land Trust (CLT) that uses community ownership and control of the land in order to provide affordable homes and community facilities in perpetuity.

Founded in 1973, we have led the development of many innovations and developments in cooperative and community ownership models that help ensure housing and economic justice for all. We envision a world where persons of all means have secure, sustainable and affordable housing and community facilities through resident and community control and ownership.

NCLT helps to expand the CLT movement by creating and participating in local, state and national CLT networks. Through these networks, NCLT works to organize and educate in order to influence public policy. NCLT acted as a leader in the creation of its local and statewide networks with the Bay Area Consortium of Community Land Trusts and the California Community Land Trust Network. NCLT is also active at the national level with its participation in the National CLT Network.

NCLT sells affordable condominiums and single family homes; leases offices and homes to non-profit organizations, cooperatives and co-housing communities; and rents affordable apartments to low, very-low and extremely low income households.

Donations & Resources

Vital Arts - Your donations directly make possible our work to stem the displacement of artists and to develop creative and affordable alternatives so the Bay Area continues to be an extraordinary place of artistic and creative ferment.

As a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization, Vital Arts relies on the generosity of people like you to continue our work. Vital Arts is endorsed by over twenty Ghost Ship family members and raises 80% of its annual operating costs from individual donors. We are grateful for your support and welcome gifts at all levels and you can make a donation here:

Northern California Community Land Trust
Your donation goes to help to provide housing for our most vulnerable artists and community members
+ Apply for NLCT Housing
+ For more resources and referrals please click here:

Videos

To find out more about Vital Arts and the Northern California Community Land Trust Programs Check Out These Videos:

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“A lot of what was keeping people sane through the pandemic was the arts. And what artists were offering them, you know, in their living rooms in whatever form. So we saw not only a shift in people really recognizing what artists were doing, but here in the bay area, we’ve seen artists as being on the front line as second responders, leading a lot of the efforts around things like PPE, organizing food banks, community volunteers, coming together to help the homeless— really pivoting to help those less fortunate ”

— Kathryn Reasoner,executive consultant,Vital Arts

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