Public housing residents get `empowerment fund'
Money will enhance services at Golden Gate Village units
Marin County supervisors set aside $2 million Tuesday to create an “empowerment” fund for about 650 people who live at Golden Gate Village in Marin City.
The money will come from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021. Marin County's 2022-23 fiscal year budget includes $25 million in American Rescue Planfunded projects.
The $2 million for the empowerment fund is part of the $5 million earmarked to help rehabilitate the southern Marin public housing complex. An additional $4 million is reserved to create a county service hub in the area.
“This action is consistent with the approved rehabilitation and revitalization plan adopted by the Marin Housing Authority on Nov. 15,” Marin County Administrator Matthew Hymel told supervisors prior to their vote.
“An important part of the framework was to improve enhanced services and opportunities to Golden Gate Village residents in addition to completely rehabbing the 296 units of affordable housing at Golden Gate Village.”
The fund will be administered by the Marin Community Foundation. The county has also submitted a grant request for the foundation to make an initial $500,000 contribution to the fund and provide another $500,000 in matching grant money in an effort to attract private donations to the fund.
Hymel said the county expects the foundation to render its decision on the grant request in April. Johnathan Logan, a foundation vice president, declined to comment on the status of the request.
"This fund would be used to enhance services to Golden Gate Village residents such as pathways to education, job training, home ownership and wealth creation."
— Marin County Administrator Matthew Hymel
The county administrator said that provided the county receives the additional $1 million from the foundation, the fund could conceivably distribute $500,000 per year over the next six years.
“This fund would be used to enhance services to Golden Gate Village residents such as pathways to education, job training, home
ownership and wealth creation,” Hymel said.
In a statement released later in the day, Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters said, “The revitalization of GGV is more than the renovation of the buildings and grounds, it is also addressing past harms and inequities through the empowerment of residents with support from this fund.”
Approximately 63% of households in Golden Gate Village are African American and 20% are Latino. The median income for residents
living in the housing complex is $10,820 versus $142,300 for the broader Marin County.
During an afternoon meeting of the Marin Housing Authority's board, Kimberly Carroll, the authority's executive director, told commissioners that Marin Community Foundation advisers will help the authority to create a fund advisory committee that will manage the fund.
Carroll said the committee will consist of Golden Gate Village residents, housing authority staff, county staff and community stakeholders.
“The policies and programs established by this fund are being generated by ideas that are coming out of our Golden Gate Village resident listening sessions, which are being held once a month,” Carroll said.
Carroll said that the housing authority is also in the process of creating a preference on the Golden Gate Village waiting list for former residents of the housing complex who want to return.
The idea for the empowerment fund emerged during a long and heated debate regarding the plan for revitalizing Golden Gate Village.
In November the Housing Authority's board voted 5-2 to approve a plan that calls for a limited partnership to be formed to purchase Golden Gate Village's buildings and land from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The housing authority will be the general partner.
In doing so, the board, which consists of county supervisors plus two residents of public housing, rejected a plan championed by the Golden Gate Village
resident council and a large group of community allies to go with a limited equity housing cooperative model.
The resident council's plan would have provided a semblance of home ownership, but the commissioners judged it to be economically infeasible.
During the supervisor's morning meeting, several people who supported the resident council's plan expressed skepticism that Golden Gate Village residents would be given the opportunity to determine how the empowerment fund money is spent.
“How does this fund go to home ownership?” asked Johnson Reynolds.
Barbara Bogard of Mill Valley said, “As we have seen in lots of other situations, if a group has one or two seats at a table and there are nine or 10 chairs, their voices don't matter.
“What Black people and other minorities want and deserve is power,” Bogard said. “Power over their own lives.”
Sam Ruben of Sausalito said he feared a repetition of what he views as the supervisors' “racist paternalism.”
Damian Morgan, who lived in Golden Gate Village until the latter part of 2022, credited Marin City Community Services District board member Terrie Harris-Green and Marin Community Foundation CEO Rhea Suh with coming up with the idea for the empowerment fund.
“This is not due to county of Marin leadership or advocacy,” Morgan said.
Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said that creation of the fund was a good first step: “It gives our community, which is very interested in Golden Village, the opportunity to actually contribute to this fund.”