by Claire Greenburger | Nov 13, 2024
A Contributor from our Next-Gen Inspiration Team
https://www.kneedeeptimes.org/when-housing-and-climate-crises-collide/
A look inside Marin County’s slow-moving response to an urgent local and regional need for affordable housing.
A rack of clothing hangs outside the entrance to the Finders’ Keepers’ Shop, located on the first floor of Golden Gate Village, a public housing development in Marin City, California. “It looks just like you are going into a little tiny hole-in-the-wall boutique,” says Royce McLemore, who has lived at Golden Gate Village for the last 48 years.
Inside, there’s a Black Lives Matter sign hanging above the check-out desk, and the shelves are lined with household appliances, bedsheets, and gently worn pants and t-shirts. Everything here is free, McLemore tells me, her voice firm with pride.
The shop is one of several projects run by Women Helping All People, an organization McLemore co-founded in 1990 with the mission of supporting the low-income and underprivileged residents of Marin County. “My purpose is to stand in the gap,” she says. In its early days, the shop was bare bones, just a few racks of clothing that a group of women would set up on their patio and distribute to residents twice a week. Now the store, alongside the organization, has outgrown its backyard beginnings. Across the driveway from the shop, Women Helping All People has an office space, where McLemore, age 81, continues her work. The organization also runs educational services, workforce training, and family counseling.
Today, the Finders’ Keepers’ Shop stands as a testament to the Black residents of Marin City’s resilience, persisting despite the county-wide gentrification that has threatened to displace much of the community.
“We are experiencing an extreme housing crisis here,” says Jenny Silva, board chair of Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative. Across Marin, affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents is scarce. “We priced out the nurses and teachers long ago,” Silva says. Nowadays Marin even struggles to recruit doctors given the very high cost of housing, she notes. The median Marin home costs $1.7 million — a price only affordable to the richest 1%. As a result, 70% of Marin’s workforce is forced to live outside the county.
As Marin’s housing crisis intensifies, so do the climate risks throughout the county — a dual crisis that has sparked a contentious debate over where and how to develop new housing. Some advocates are pushing for more affordable housing to support the residents who are being priced out. However, local opposition over environmental, flooding, and safety concerns has hindered development.
In this complex landscape, Marin City, a small unincorporated community just across the bay from San Francisco, illustrates the effects of years of gentrification throughout the county. Although less than 2% of Marin’s residents live in Marin City, it accounts for 60% of the county’s affordable housing units. Marin County is regarded as the most racially segregated county in California.
Black residents make up nearly a quarter of Marin City’s population, compared to just 3% of the county as a whole, a number that is shrinking as rents rise and Black families are continually priced out. Many residents believe they have been deliberately neglected by the County, denied adequate infrastructure, and plagued with a myriad of environmental and public health issues. “They are trying to force us out,” McLemore says.