About the Bay Area Preservation Finance Table

The Bay Area Preservation Finance Table (BAPFT) is a collaborative initiative led by the San Francisco Community Land Trust that brings together the region’s most committed stakeholders to advance community-centered preservation of affordable housing and land.

Who We Are

BAPFT convenes a dynamic, cross-sector forum of community organizations, land trusts, affordable housing developers, foundations, public agencies, and financial institutions. By uniting diverse perspectives and expertise, we bridge critical gaps in funding, facilitate access to resources, and ensure affordable housing through preservation and community ownership models—particularly for historically marginalized communities, including low-income residents and communities of color.

With more than 60 organizations represented across our regular meetings, BAPFT has grown from a small circle into a powerful coalition committed to scaling community ownership throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

What We Do

We facilitate essential conversations and collaborations that don’t exist elsewhere. Our work includes:

  • Sharing best practices and resources across sectors to stimulate innovative partnerships and cross-sector conversations

  • Building the community ownership movement, growing from 14 organizations to over 60 across the region

  • Identifying collaborative opportunities where sectors can leverage resources together—from CDFIs and small sites initiatives to foundation partnerships and regional pilot projects

  • Unlocking creative capital streams at a time when public resources are increasingly limited, expanding flexible, mission-driven financing that strengthens CLTs’ ability to compete, acquire, and preserve homes

  • Positioning expertise and leadership in preservation finance and community ownership models

BAPFT Timeline

2026

Capital for Community: Leveraging Bank CRAs for CLTs

Central theme: How community land trusts, banks, and mission-driven investors are building new financing partnerships to expand permanently affordable housing and community ownership across California. Through conversations with leaders in both finance and community ownership, the meeting explored strategies for securing Community Reinvestment Act investments, structuring loan funds, underwriting community ownership projects, and building the long-term relationships needed to scale preservation finance.

Featured Speakers:

  • Kevin Stein, Chief of Legal and Strategy, Rise Economy
  • Matt Nelson, Director of Operations, Habitat Community Capital
  • Merrill Burns, Principal, Krambo Corporation
  • Lee Farmer, Deputy Director of Investment Strategy, Common Counsel Foundation
  • Trina Villanueva, Senior CRA Community Development Officer, First Citizens Bank
  • Tamika L’Ecluse, Executive Director, Sacramento Community Land Trust

2025

Scaling Community Ownership Statewide — Capacity Building Models from Across California

Central theme: How community land trusts across California are building organizational capacity to scale community ownership and permanently affordable housing through collaboration, technical assistance, and statewide partnership strategies. Presenters from the California CLT Network, regional CLT coalitions, and public sector agencies shared approaches to movement-building, resource-sharing, and technical assistance programs designed to strengthen the long-term sustainability and impact of the community ownership movement.

Featured speakers:

  • Lydia Lopez, Co-Director, California Community Land Trust Network (CACLTN)
  • Jacky Rivera, San Joaquin Valley Community Ownership Coordinator, CACLTN
  • Jessica Melendez, Director of Policy, T.R.U.S.T. South LA / LA CLT Coalition
  • Brenda Tafoya, LA CLT Coalition
  • Somaya Abdelgany, Preservation Program Manager, Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA)

Creative Capital for Community Ownership — What Can Philanthropy and the Private Sector Do to Generate Capital for the Community Ownership Movement?

Central theme: How philanthropy, foundations, and private sector partners can generate creative capital to scale the community ownership movement in the face of limited public resources. Through presentations and panel discussions, speakers examined topics including integrated capital funds, CRA-driven investment strategies, regenerative finance, movement infrastructure, and collaborative approaches to financing community-owned housing and preservation projects across California.

Featured speakers:

  • Eli Moore, Director, Community Power and Policy Partnerships Program, Othering & Belonging Institute
  • Amourence Lee, Program Officer for Policy and Innovation, San Francisco Foundation
  • Taj James, Founder, Full Spectrum Group
  • Emily Duma, Program Strategist, Common Counsel Foundation

2024

Local Government & CDFI Meeting

Central theme: How Bay Area jurisdictions with established preservation programs can help public sector peers learn from existing acquisition and rehabilitation models designed to prevent displacement and preserve permanently affordable housing. Through presentations from public sector representatives in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, participants explored preservation program design, public-CDFI financing partnerships, COPA implementation, underwriting challenges, revolving loan structures, and strategies for supporting community land trusts and nonprofit developers in competitive real estate markets.

Featured speakers:

  • Alea Gage, Preservation Program Manager, Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, City and County of San Francisco
  • Meghan Horl, Candace Latigue & Trisha Gonzalez, Housing Preservation Services, Housing and Community Development Department, City of Oakland
  • City of Berkeley staff presenter (name not listed)

Community Ownership Lookbook Workshop: Financing the Preservation Pipeline

Central theme: Bay Area Preservation Lookbook, a regional portfolio of 20 community ownership and preservation projects across six Bay Area counties that are ready to move forward but face financing and capacity barriers. Through breakout sessions, participants explored strategies for unlocking acquisition and rehabilitation financing, strengthening cross-sector partnerships with CDFIs and public agencies, and building the long-term infrastructure needed to scale community ownership across the Bay Area.

Breakout Group Facilitators:

  • Saki Bailey, SFCLT
  • Kyle Smeallie, SFCLT
  • Osmaan Dawood, SFCLT
  • Kristen Villalobos, SFCLT
  • Victoria Beckley, SFCLT
  • Sal Smyth & Elizabeth Wampler, LISC

Mapping the Bay Area Community Ownership and Preservation Financing Landscape

Central theme: Mapping the Bay Area community ownership ecosystem, including preservation funding sources, community land trust capacity, and the organizations supporting preservation and anti-displacement work across the region. Through breakout discussions with foundations, CDFIs, government agencies, researchers, and CLTs, participants explored barriers to financing preservation projects, strategies for scaling community ownership infrastructure, and opportunities for cross-sector collaboration to strengthen the Bay Area preservation movement.

2023

First Meeting of the Bay Area Preservation Finance Table

The inaugural Bay Area Preservation Finance Table meeting brought together community land trusts, CDFIs, foundations, public agencies, and preservation practitioners to launch a cross-sector conversation about scaling community ownership and permanently affordable housing across the Bay Area. The kickoff meeting focused on SFCLT’s proposed CLT Capacity Collaborative and fee-for-service model, exploring strategies for expanding preservation capacity through shared technical assistance, asset management, construction management, cooperative education, and coordinated funding partnerships to support community land trusts and BIPOC-led housing organizations.