What Are We?

COOP,  MHA, CLT, OR WHAT?

About Voice of the People and the new Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust

What is Voice of the People’s model of ownership and governance of property and that of the start-up entity the Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust

How is each structured vis a vis community, cooperative or non-profit ownership; resident and institutional participation; operation of a “durable” and unifying organization, delivery of stewardship services; and, how are they the same or different from historical models of “limited equity” cooperatives and community land trusts.

Tom Lenz, Former Executive of Voice and Dovie Thurman III, granddaughter and namesake for the Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust. Dovie Thurman was a “Founding Mother” among Voice Tenants, who became a legendary community leader, minister and role model in Uptown.

The organization was mostly focused on providing very low income opportunities in a community with a very high percentage of dense, rental housing stock, but also to a lesser extent providing homeownership opportunities to people of multiple ethnicities via the International Homes.  While pursuing building-by-building acquisition and development strategies for properties owned/sponsored by Voice, primarily with a family housing priority, Voice also supported others in non-profit development to address specific needs, spinning off Lakefront SRO/Mercy Housing to concentrate on SRO and Supportive Housing that it later pioneered, and resident controlled housing, such as the 500 unit Lakeview Towers, which has been a model of good management and now co-owner of new developments happening in Uptown.

Voice of the People was formed in 1968 as a grassroots community response to wholesale efforts to engineer displacement of the lowest income whites, blacks, native and other people of color in the Uptown community of Chicago via public and private real estate developments.  Failure in multi-year organizing and planning efforts to have the City of Chicago adopt and support community development without displacement plans, aka Hank Williams Village, modified Voice’s early focus on organizing, fighting “arson for profit” schemes and finding alternative homes by those impacted by displacement, to a broader role and slower strategy in doing receivership property management, acquiring and developing property.  

Voice was established when urban and affordable housing cooperatives were in their early stages of development, including “scattered site” coops.  The traditional and purist models for coops would have residents electing leaders/directors directly or via building elected representatives to govern the organization.  Coops (often in a good way) tend to be inwardly focused – focused on improving the building, addressing property management concerns and parochial concerns of individual coop units or of people in the building and immediate community. This is effective when getting toilets fixed, but limiting if that is the  priority over broader efforts to expand benefits of coop ownership via new acquisitions or developments, or to expand and deliver community services more broadly.  

Therefore, Voice drew on existing leadership from organizing and affordable housing campaigns and required board membership where a majority would always need to be residents of Voice-sponsored housing, with the balance being from the community or professional ranks at large – people who supported the organization’s mission to create affordable housing and empower residents by involving them in property management, community development, and resident/community services.  This model of board set up in 1968, dominated by residents with self-less priorities, not purely democratic in their selection, but having majority resident leadership working together with institutional leadership, later became the next iteration model for scattered site housing coops – called Mutual Housing Associations (MHAs). Voice as a non-profit organization that is a hybrid MHA, one that is resident and community controlled – one that provides leased and not ownership affordable housing.

As for newly established Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust, the subject of requests for start-up funding, this will be governed using a model coming out of Community Land Trust traditions, which began on a parallel path to Mutual Housing Associations in urban areas in the 1980s. In these traditional CLT models, there is heavy owner participation in governance, and the balancing and tradeoffs of director self-interest that happens through approximate 50/50 representation in leadership.  Affordability for future generations is the driving motivation, with “wealth building” being a current priority for owners who are members, even given that they cannot sell their units without limiting appreciation…  Each has a “ground lease” held by a non-profit organization and board, with the provisions of resale limiting the sale prices and targeting future owners so that people of a moderate income will always have a place in the community, even in the context of gentrification and increasing land/development costs.  

The new trust, as planned, follows this community land trust model relatively closely, with a non-profit intended to deliver “stewardship services” and benefits to members, who instead of being residents of a coop, are representatives of non-profit and affordable housing developments, developments that commit to affordable housing in perpetuity.  So a cooperative membership model would be followed, with prorated voting powers allocated to members as the entity grows, and with a balance of interests represented on its board of directors.  

However, the Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust is also a hybrid CLT.  It will include mostly rental housing providers/developments, as well as representatives of “shared-equity housing” — not individual homeowners. It can include existing developments as well as new ones, forswearing this typical driving force for CLTs nationwide as unnecessary and duplicative in Chicago. It will broaden the definition of “wealth building” to include Economic Stability & Financial Empowerment, which increases household options and opportunities via resident services to achieve residents personal and financial goals…  not just increase their income or equity.  

By virtue of “permanent affordability status” of housing, which directly affects how communities can be more just, equitable and diverse in their housing and economic opportunities over time, the trust will attempt to win and deliver on benefits to members ranging from lower taxes to priority scoring for subsidies, resident service grants, to property management technical assistance. Finally, the Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust will be able to guarantee affordability using ground leases, with use restrictions upon resale like other CLTs, but additionally in a way unique in the planned approach – utilizing covenants that run with the land that define affordable housing future uses, and in tandem with supportive institutions, mitigate the need to “subordinate” financing and funding for unwanted market rate sales in the future. Considering the unique motivations and methods for the trust, we named it after a legendary Black woman leader from Voice and Uptown’s past, who dedicated her life to sustainable affordable housing and social justice in the community, and, we did not use the term “community land trust”, knowing the imperfect fit with the CLT traditional model.

In short, Voice of the People in Uptown, as founder of the new Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust, is a democratically run hybrid cooperative along the lines of a Mutual Housing Association, and the new trust is a hybrid community land trust with cooperative membership, promoting resident empowerment, non-profit/community housing sponsorship and affordable housing sustainability in ways novel to Chicago and targeted to people with lower incomes than around the nation.  

Voice seeks start-up funding for the Dovie Thurman Affordable Housing Trust as a non-profit organization, and will pilot processes with lenders, funders and officials for the inclusion of three buildings to seed the trust initiative, properties already rehabilitated and under the trust umbrella, and paving the way for outreach, education and inclusion for other affordable housing owners to become part of the innovative effort in the future – so they can sustain affordable housing and achieve sustainable racial and economic diversity in ever-changing Chicago communities.