What does it take to keep artists in San Francisco?
That question brought together housing advocates, artists, community organizers, and cultural leaders at Holding Ground: Models for Artist Housing in a Time of Displacement, a public panel and resource fair co-convened by San Francisco Community Land Trust and Artist Space Trust during Affordable Housing Month.
Hosted at Root Division and presented in partnership with East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO) and the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO), the event created space for an urgent conversation about the future of artists, arts spaces, and cultural communities in the Bay Area. More importantly, it highlighted the innovative work already underway to ensure that artists can continue to live, work, and create here.
For SFCLT, the conversation was deeply connected to our mission.
Since 2003, SFCLT has worked to preserve permanently affordable housing by removing properties from the speculative market and placing them into community ownership. From the very beginning, artists have been part of that story. Two of SFCLT’s earliest properties were intentionally established as cooperative living spaces for artists, recognizing that stable housing is essential to sustaining the cultural life of our city.
Today, that reality feels more urgent than ever.
Across the Bay Area, artists face rising rents, shrinking institutional support, and the loss of cultural spaces that have long anchored creative communities. While cities celebrate the arts as central to their identity and economic vitality, too many artists are finding it increasingly difficult to remain in the communities they help shape. As SFCLT Policy and Development Director Kyle Smeallie noted during the event, housing is not a secondary issue for artists. It is essential infrastructure. Without stable and affordable housing, artists lose the ability to stay rooted in community, sustain creative practices, and contribute to the cultural ecosystems that make our neighborhoods vibrant and unique.
That is why partnerships like the one between SFCLT and Artist Space Trust are so important.
Artist Space Trust has emerged as one of the region’s leading voices and innovators in the fight for artist housing. Through community-centered ownership models, AST is creating long-term affordable housing and live-work opportunities specifically designed to meet the needs of artists and culture bearers. Their work recognizes a simple but powerful truth: if we want thriving cultural communities, we must create pathways for artists to remain in the places they help build.
Holding Ground reflected AST’s commitment to turning that vision into reality.
The panel brought together leaders working at the intersection of housing, arts advocacy, and community development, including Meg Shiffler of Artist Space Trust, Genie Sullivan of H.E.L.L.A. Co-Lab, Rashida Chase of Vital Arts, and Randall Kline of Artists Hub on Market. Together, they explored emerging solutions including community land trusts, artist-led housing cooperatives, permanently affordable live-work spaces, community ownership models, and new policy approaches designed to protect artists from displacement.
While the challenges facing artists are significant, the panel demonstrated that displacement is not inevitable. Across the Bay Area, organizations and advocates are building new models that challenge speculation, prioritize community ownership, and create lasting affordability for artists. These efforts show that housing policy and cultural preservation are deeply connected, and that protecting artists requires both creativity and collaboration.
The evening concluded with a resource fair connecting attendees directly with organizations working on artist housing and advocacy throughout the region. The event underscored the growing ecosystem of partners committed to ensuring that artists are not treated as an afterthought in conversations about housing, but as essential members of the communities that make the Bay Area what it is.
Following the event, ABC7 featured the growing challenges artists face in staying housed in San Francisco, while KQED recently spotlighted emerging efforts to create permanently affordable artist housing across the Bay Area.
SFCLT is proud to have partnered with Artist Space Trust to convene this conversation. Their leadership, vision, and commitment to community-centered solutions are helping build a future where artists can remain rooted in the Bay Area and continue shaping the neighborhoods, culture, and civic life that define our region.
The housing crisis is often discussed in terms of units, funding, and policy. Those tools matter. But Holding Ground reminded us that housing is ultimately about people, community, and belonging. If San Francisco is serious about preserving its cultural identity, we must be equally serious about preserving a place for artists within it.
We look forward to continuing this partnership and advancing the shared work of creating permanently affordable, community-controlled housing solutions that keep artists — and the communities they enrich — firmly rooted in the Bay Area.