Oakland, CA – Today, the Fund for an Inclusive California announced the first $1.7 million in grants to support local, regional and state-wide community organizing efforts for housing justice and equitable development across the state. These grants signify the launch of the Fund’s next five-year phase, designed by community partners and focused on growing interconnected organizing efforts in California toward a variety of solutions for permanently affordable housing.

The Fund for an Inclusive California, a program of the Common Counsel Foundation’s Housing Justice Initiative, is a pooled fund building on the first phase of funder partners who remain supportive, including The California Endowment, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, The James Irvine Foundation, The Weingart Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation. In its previous five-year phase, the fund raised $13 million to grow community power for housing efforts from a diverse range of foundations.

“The work of our community partners is truly inspiring, and is essential for a future where communities of color can stay and thrive in California. Funders understand that we have to use every tool we have to keep people in their homes, to support building power in communities, and to change this untenable housing paradigm,” said Jazmin Segura, director of the Fund for an Inclusive California.

“Our funding aligns with and centers the priorities identified by communities with the lived experience to shape and implement sustainable solutions. This phase of the Fund’s work is critical to support the organizing and systems change wins that community partners have fought so hard to implement, and that are making tangible differences in the lives of thousands of Californians, with the potential to reach so many more who are struggling to stay in their homes.” added Craig Martinez, Senior Program Manager, Partnership & Programs, The California Endowment.

The community partners funded in this first $1.7 million in grants collectively reach tens of thousands of low-income Black, Indigenous, People of Color Californians. In the last four years, organizations supported by the Fund have secured impressive and unprecedented wins at the local and state levels, from first-ever renter protections and tenant unions in the Central Valley, Inland Region and Bay Area, to influencing Covid-19 recovery dollars, to Measure U-LA, which won in Los Angeles last fall and will raise hundreds of millions of dollars to support affordable housing and reduce homelessness through a transfer tax on luxury real-estate transactions.

The Central Valley and Inland Region are particular focuses for support in this phase of the Fund, with organizations tackling eviction, housing insecurity, and displacement by harnessing the power of the very communities that endure the state’s most intractable challenges.

“In this moment we seeing change happen through organizing in our communities, and building the political influence and economic opportunity of people of color in our state,” said Vonya Quarles, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Starting Over, Inc, in Riverside, CA. “We are organizing to make sure all people have a dignified place to call home. This future is possible through long-term investments in powerbuilding.”

California has the second-highest homelessness rate in the nation. As of 2022, 30% of all people in the U.S. experiencing homelessness live in the state, including half of all unsheltered people. For Californians who are housed, nearly half (45.5%) are renters, making renter power and protections critical for their stability and livelihoods, especially against the outsized role of the speculative housing market.

“Together with the Fund for An Inclusive California, we’re holding a longer-term vision for housing justice in our communities and in our state,” added Derek Steele, Executive Director, Social Justice Learning Institute, Inglewood, CA, in Los Angeles. “But the need for change in systems, for securing protections, and to protect a democracy that we’re all a part of couldn’t be greater than at this moment. And we are working with the Fund and others across the state to expand our reach and our support.”

The Fund for an Inclusive California’s current work builds on its last five years of co-led efforts with organizations growing the power of people at the frontlines of displacement and housing policies. In the coming months the Fund will announce its governance structure for this phase which will be a blend of community partners and funders.

Learn more about the Fund at f4ica.commoncounsel.org. Full list of nonprofits in this round of grants, here.