Giving Compass' Take:

· Sarah Holder at CityLab reports on a new affordable housing movement launched in the Bay Area by the activist group Moms 4 Housing.

· How can donors help with efforts to improve housing affordability? What can companies do to help provide more affordable housing in areas they occupy?

· Here's how corporations can bolster affordable housing. 

On November 18, two women walked in through the unlocked door of a vacant three-bedroom house on West Oakland’s Magnolia Street, set up small bedrooms for themselves and their children, and settled in for an occupation designed to call attention to the Bay Area’s housing affordability crisis.

Over the next few months, this collective of formerly unhoused women grew in size—and power. Calling themselves Moms 4 Housing, the group remained in 2928 Magnolia Street day and night, sometimes protected by volunteer security guards while they slept. National figures emerged to voice their support; housing activists and local community members showed up with signs and supplies. On January 10, a judge ruled that the women were squatting illegally and ordered them out. Still, they stayed—until Tuesday, January 14, when a heavily armed contingent of Alameda County Sheriff’s Office deputies entered the home, pushed their furniture into the street, and arrested two of the women. By morning, the families had been fully evicted.

But on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a new chapter began for the women, whose activism in California’s East Bay has snowballed into a national movement for housing rights: The house on Magnolia Street, once vacant, will soon belong to them.

In a dramatic concession, Wedgewood Properties, a home-flipping company that purchased the house in August, will give Oakland’s Community Land Trust the chance to purchase the property for a market price and to rehabilitate it. The group will be able to stay there officially once the sale is complete.

“This is what happens when we organize, when people come together to build the beloved community,” said Moms 4 Housing member Dominique Walker in a statement. She’s a community organizer who grew up in Oakland, and is raising two children without access to stable housing. “Today we honor Dr. King’s radical legacy by taking Oakland back from banks and corporations.”

Read the full article about the Bay Area’s housing affordability crisis by Sarah Holder at CityLab.