Local Group to Celebrate Affordable Housing Initiatives

Community organizations will come together  for “Uniting for Housing” at 2 p.m. on Dec. 3 at First Methodist Church of Pasadena (FUMC) to celebrate the success of recent affordable housing initiatives.

The event will include music, refreshments, and inspiring stories of how the community is coming together to address the housing crisis in Pasadena and beyond through affordable housing.

With the help of Make Housing and Community Happen (MHCH), Rev. Connie Tamkin, a pastor at FUMC, helped launch the San Gabriel Valley Community Land Trust. In a community land trust, homeowners own their homes, but the land is held in common by the trust, with a resale formula to keep homes permanently affordable.

“I could not be happier that SGV CLT is now launched,” said Jill Shook, MHCH founding director. “My husband Anthony and I are eager to be the first to put our home into the trust”.

MHCH will also honor its many partners – including LA Voice, the Pasadena Tenants Union, Foothill Unity Center, POP!, Union Station, Clergy Community Coalition – as well as its supporting religious congregations.

The group will also present the John Kennedy Legacy Award. 

This year MHCH successfully advocated for rezoning religious land for affordable housing in Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Yorba Linda and is working to pass a bill to rezone religious land for affordable housing statewide. Its Congregational Land Committee (CLC) advises congregations wanting affordable housing built on their underutilized land. 70 congregations in Southern California have approached us for help—already hundreds of units are moving forward.  The CLC advised a church in Laguna Beach that will have 84 units of affordable housing—the first affordable housing project in that city since 2005. 

MHCH also organized two successful One-Day Housing Justice Institutes, in Bellflower and Arcadia, training community leaders on how to advocate for affordable housing. MHCH’s safe parking pilot program has helped people living in their cars get housed through the supportive services of Foothill Unity Center.