Artist Housing Advocates Eye a ‘Once-in-100-Year’ Opportunity

This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here.

Jaelynn Walls thought it would take years of saving before they could buy their own home in Oakland. But after seeing an Instagram post from Artist Space Trust, home ownership went from dream to reality for the 27-year-old fiction writer, curator and visual artist.

Artist Space Trust, a new Bay Area organization that helps artists secure affordable housing, helped Walls secure $168,000 in downpayment assistance from CalHOME, a state program for first-time homebuyers. After a whirlwind three months of compiling financial paperwork and spending their free time at open houses, Walls and their wife got the keys to a cozy East Oakland three-bedroom.

“Just having a place to land, and not feeling like I could have the rug pulled out from under me at any moment by the greater powers that be, such as a landlord or a housing company, is very assuring,” Walls said during a video call from their fabric- and plant-filled home studio.

Walls used to live in a cramped Tenderloin studio apartment where most of their income went to rent. Now, a much smaller portion of their paycheck goes to their mortgage.

They have more space to focus on their next young-adult novel and quilting projects, and can even set aside some savings. Walls’ wife has a music studio where friends collaborate. Out-of-town artists sometimes crash with the couple when they’re in the Bay Area for gigs.

“This is pretty much the greatest thing that has ever happened to me in terms of my creative practice,” Walls said.

Bay Area artists have always been resilient, but in recent years, economic upheaval, the worldwide pandemic and federal funding cuts have put a financial strain on artists, and forced some to leave the region altogether.

As housing costs continue to rise, artists, policymakers and nonprofit leaders are testing new models to make sure the people who give the Bay Area its creative identity can afford to stay. Artist Space Trust uses a community land trust model to take homes off the for-profit real estate market and make them permanently affordable for artists. It’s part of a larger movement to create artist housing throughout the Bay Area, including projects underway in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland.

Walls sees the Bay Area as their long-term home, and they’re relieved they can afford to stay. That’s a rarity among their peers.

“I’m surrounded by artists who have unstable housing, who are not sure of where they’re going to create, or how they’re gonna create their work,” Walls said, “and even beyond that, where they’re going to live.”

Meg Shiffler, the director of Artist Space Trust, said her organization is looking generations ahead.

“If you lift up and look down at the Bay Area, 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now, there are gonna be artists permanently embedded all over the Bay Area,” Shiffler said.

The Great Wealth Transfer creates an opening for artist housing

While there isn’t enough recent data available to paint a complete picture of Bay Area artists as a workforce, it’s safe to say they’re struggling to get by.

The last large-scale survey of artists in San Francisco, from 2015, found that 70% had been or were being displaced from their home, workspace or both. A 2021 survey of artists in Berkeley found that the majority were low-income, and 77% were either “rent burdened” or “severely rent burdened.”

In the past decade, Bay Area artists have faced setback after setback. In 2016, the Ghost Ship fire at a live-work artist warehouse in Oakland, during which 36 people died, prompted a wave of evictions from makeshift dwellings where artists lived because they couldn’t afford anything else.

Then came the 2020 pandemic shutdowns, which cut off performance income, and another wave of displacement when state and city governments lifted eviction moratoriums. In more recent years, surging gas, food and rent prices have kept artists and other workers stuck in financial precarity.

Advocates say that securing permanently affordable housing for artists is key to ensuring that the Bay Area can remain a cultural hub. Qiana Ellis, Artist Space Trust’s programs manager, sees a rare opportunity for artists to secure a permanent place in the region. “They’re calling it the Great Wealth Transfer,” she said.

Over the next two decades, an estimated $124 trillion will change hands nationally as Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation die and pass on their assets, according to the consulting firm Cerulli Associates. “We’re really in this point that may not happen for another 100 years,” Ellis said.

It’s mostly members of these generations who are bequeathing their homes to Artist Space Trust. Some of them are artists and most aren’t wealthy themselves; they bought their homes decades ago, when houses in the Bay Area went for around $23,000. Today’s average home price is over $700,000 in Oakland and over $1.3 million in San Francisco.

“They’re looking back on their lives and saying, ‘Wow, I see how difficult it’s gotten for artists,’” Ellis said. “‘I’m in conversation with younger generations, and I know that they cannot make their work in the same way that I could and be able to afford housing anymore.’”

Assessing artists’ needs

Artist Space Trust is the first organization in the nation to use a community land trust model to create permanently affordable housing specifically for artists.

The Berkeley nonprofit takes properties off the for-profit real-estate market and sells them well below market rate. Prices are set so that an individual making 60% to 80% of the area median income — roughly $65,000 to $87,000 — would spend no more than 30% of their monthly income on housing expenses. The organization is also working to create other home ownership opportunities, such as tiny homes and condos, for artists making below 60% of the area’s median income.

Artist Space Trust has $15 million in properties that have either been donated or will be in the coming years. Some are single-family homes while others are more unconventional, including a property with a house, a warehouse and enough room to build another unit. So far, in partnership with the Northern California Land Trust (NCLT), the organization has helped artists purchase homes by helping them take advantage of the CalHOME downpayment-assistance program. This year, Artist Space Trust will sell the first property from its own portfolio: a duplex in San Francisco’s Mission District that will go to two artist households.

The nonprofit is currently doing outreach at community events to educate local artists on different pathways to affordable housing; their next resource fair is on May 19. “The idea is that we start to get individuals, families and cooperatives ready for the opportunities that are coming,” Shiffler said.

Artist Space Trust is a partnership of NCLT and Vital Arts, an economic justice organization for artists that formed after the Ghost Ship fire. Vital Arts Director Sharmi Basu lost over a dozen friends in the tragedy; in the aftermath, they poured themself into organizing mutual aid for survivors.

Today, Vital Arts tackles affordability at several different levels. The organization helps artists cover basic living expenses through its Artist Displacement Prevention Grant, which gives out $3,000 in emergency assistance to artists facing eviction, homelessness and sudden rent increases. At its free Artist Legal Cafe, next happening on May 19, lawyers advise artists on tenants’ rights and other issues.

For Basu, helping artists get permanent housing through Artist Space Trust is a crucial part of the solution. While Artist Space Trust helps artists navigate the complicated financial logistics, Vital Arts will come in when it’s time to select potential homeowners for each housing opportunity.

There are the features of the property to consider — ceramicists will be prioritized for a home with a pottery studio, for example — but Basu also sees this as an opportunity to address inequality. They want to make sure these housing opportunities don’t just reach people from well-off backgrounds, but go to people from Black and brown communities who have historically been locked out of homeownership because of redlining and other racist policies.

“[We’re] making sure that equity is built from the foundation up in that selection process,” Basu said.

A movement for artist housing grows

The need for artist housing is inspiring efforts across the Bay Area.

Artists Hub on Market and Mercy Housing of California, two nonprofits, will soon begin construction on an 100% affordable San Francisco apartment building for artists that will include nearly 100 units, plus workspaces, a community center and a theater. Another nonprofit, Unity Council, has plans to develop the former Ghost Ship site in East Oakland into affordable housing, with 10% of the units set aside for artists.

Artists Hub on Market is slated for completion in 2028, and the Unity Council building is projected to begin construction that year. But building from the ground up is a lengthy process, so arts advocates are also exploring how to create affordable artist housing in existing properties.

Rashida Chase, board chair of Vital Arts, is a cultural strategist in Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife’s office. Chase lobbied the state to designate downtown Oakland’s Black Arts Movement and Business District as a California Cultural District, which opens up more housing opportunities.

Thanks to the 2023 state law AB 812, city governments can set aside 10% of locally required affordable housing units for artists within and around state-designated cultural districts, as well as within local cultural districts.

The city of Berkeley is using AB 812 to pursue similar strategies. Artist Space Trust is currently advising multiple housing developers building in cultural districts, with the goal of holding the master lease for the units designated for artists.

This summer, Chase is spearheading a survey to find out whether there are city-owned properties, foreclosed homes or vacant lots that could be converted into affordable housing.

Chase, who grew up in West Oakland, namechecks born-and-raised Oaklanders Ryan Coogler, Zendaya and Alysa Liu when she talks about the importance of creating policy that makes it easier for artists to stay in Oakland. “Culture is our main export,” she said.

“We can hope [the Bay Area] won’t keep skyrocketing, but prices typically don’t come down,” Chase said. “And so we just wanna make sure that there’s enough housing available for the artists who are still here, but also artists who wanna come back.”

Experts from Artist Space Trust and other nonprofits are hosting Holding Ground, a panel discussion and resource fair, on May 19 at 6:30 p.m. at Root Division (1131 Mission St., San Francisco). Also on May 19, Vital Arts has its free Artist Legal Cafe from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at Bandaloop Studios (1601 18th St., Oakland).