Spotlight: Tamika L'Ecluse & the Sac Community Land Trust!
In August of 2023, Tamika L'Ecluse (pictured right) was hired as the Sacramento Community Land Trust's (SCLT) first Executive Director! Tamika is long-time community advocate who is dedicated to supporting and empowering our most disenfranchised community members.
We're so excited to see how Tamika continues to grow this important organization!
What are community land trusts?
Community land trusts are nonprofits that exist for the purpose of permanently stewarding land to the benefit of low income people and communities. Land usage inside CLTs is governed communally by residents & neighbors. At their heart, the purpose of CLTs is the construction of homes that will remain permanently affordable - learn more!
As stated on the SCLT website:
CLT's harness the power of rarely-heard and often-disenfranchised people, partner with groups fighting for greater equity, compete for property and buildings that would normally go to the highest bidder, and obtain land for the permanent use of and direction by historically discriminated communities
What’s SCLT all about?
Mission: to prevent displacement and build historically discriminated neighborhood power to combat deterioration and market speculation by fostering equitable development for generations to come.
Vision: SCLT is a vehicle fighting to sustain and strengthen historically discriminated neighborhoods using a transparent, accountable shared governance model to drive a sustainable, equitable, and empowered Sacramento metro area.
Some other important things to know about SCLT include:
*language pulled from the SCLT website
SCLT primarily serves “historically discriminated” communities, defined as [First Nations/Native American, Southeast Asian/Pacific Islander, Latinx, Black, Arab/Middle Eastern, refugee, undocumented and documented immigrants, LGBTQIA, low-income, youth, people with disability, people who are housing insecure, people who are formerly incarcerated].
SCLT's primary objective is to preserve affordability and community cohesion by preventing displacement. In so doing, SCLT will stabilize residents, expand homeownership, ensure neighborhood control of assets and opportunities, and build shared community wealth.
SCLT's secondary objective is to build community power to ensure more equitable development. As much as possible, SCLT will seek to convene and build the capacity of resident leaders and community groups that seek to influence activities both within and outside of SCLT’s control.
As stated by Tamika:
We don’t have to do everything by ourselves, we can do this as a community
An example of SCLT’s work: the Morrison Creek Revitalization Project!
Morrison Creek (pictured below) runs between Power Inn Road and 65th Street and through the Avondale Glen Elder neighborhood and is located adjacent to Sim Park, the George Sim Community Center, and Elder Creek Elementary School (description pulled from City website). Learn more about the project here!
This project is being championed by SCLT, the City of Sacramento, and the California Department of Water Resources Urban Streams Restoration Program, with the goal of revitalizing a section of Morrison Creek. Community members in the area advocated for a safer and cleaner community space, and there is now a process underway for continual community outreach and engagement around how best to steward the land for the benefit of the entire community. Some of the benefits of revitalizing the space include: increasing biodiversity, addressing issues with the creek’s floodplain, and building up the space as an amenity for the community to use.
Community engagement regarding this project includes intentional outreach to unhoused neighbors living in the area. The Sacramento Homeless Union is helping with this piece to ensure that unhoused community members, who are also stewards of the land, are heard and their needs are prioritized and incorporated into future plans. SCLT is also working to build up the community ownership & power needed to hold the city accountable for this project fitting with the community's values.
In our conversation, Tamika also explained that SCLT centers all of its work around the community that drives & directs it, and seeks to help communities define what community ownership means to them. Ultimately, this project will help to stabilize and empower the community surrounding Morrison Creek.
Want to get involved? Follow @sacclt to stay up to date on when the next community clean up is taking place!
