About #liberated23rdave
A long-time, low-rent community building in East Oakland could have become a giant playground for big tech.
Instead, with community support, it's staying an affordable, people of color-led social justice center.
In January 2017, our landlord told us she was selling the building and unless we raised cash in 90 days to help buy it, the vibrant, tight-knit community members and community resources who share our historic building at 23rd and International could have been displaced.
Our mixed-use building housed:
* a community bike shop (The Bikery, part of Cycles of Change)
* a Queer & Trans People Of Color collectively-run house and community garden
(SOL - Sustaining Ourselves Locally)
* a martial arts and self-defense studio (Shaolin Life)
* a Queer & Trans People of Color arts organization and maker space
(Peacock Rebellion & LOL - Liberating Ourselves Locally)
and is home to a diverse group of low-income people of color.
Together with the Oakland Community Land Trust, we had the rare opportunity to buy the building and build a dream of long-term affordable housing and community space.
Together, the community raised cash, and we made an offer on the building in May 2017.
On November 28, 2017, we bought the building!
Thanks to the Oakland Community Land Trust, POC Sustainable Housing Network, Sustainable Economies Law Center, Northern California Community Loan Fund, EastSide Arts Alliance, and everyone who donated, gave advice, cheered us on, and kept believing in this dream. You are why we're still here.
