Creating a legacy for a beloved community
One way that generosity to CLAM and the community occurs is through legacy giving, usually in the form of a gift—of an asset such as property, or cash— to a nonprofit in a person’s will, to be given after the person’s death. Here are two examples of community members who have made plans in their wills to leave their homes to CLAM for the long-term sustainability of Point Reyes Station.
Ruth Fleshman
Point Reyes resident Ruth Fleshman had a long career as a community health nurse, educator, researcher and founder of a nonprofit. Ruth lived up on the Mesa when she bought a second home in town. Her retirement plan was to live off the rental income. Little did she know the big role that little house would play as the birthplace of CLAM.
“My first tenants were my long-time friends Cynthia Clarkson and her family. One day, Cynthia and her friends Ann Sheree Greenbaum, Penny Livingston and James Stark sat down here,” she gestured toward a table in the modest living room. “Not at the kitchen table, because the kitchen is not big enough! They went through the whole process of developing a community land trust that would provide affordable housing for the community. That was how CLAM started, in 2000.
“When my eyesight failed, I moved down from the Mesa into this house. One day, one of my walkers took me out, and as we strolled around town we ran into three people who said they had jobs out here but no place to live, and did we know of anything? We didn’t. I’ve heard this over and over. There’s work but no housing.
“I’d been following CLAM from the get-go. I decided to use my property to help to support the local community. I have a niece on the East Coast and I want to leave some money to her, but it was pretty simple to work out. When I pass away, I have arranged that the proceeds of the sale of my house – at a below-market-rate price – will go to my niece, but CLAM will have right of first refusal on the purchase. If CLAM can buy the house at that reduced price, it will remain affordable in perpetuity.... YESSSS!”
“This is a little house. It will make a little dent. Every little dent helps.”
Patsy Bannerman
Patsy Bannerman worked as a nurse in San Francisco in the 1980s and visited Point Reyes Station often, dreaming of someday having her own place here. One sunny day in 1984 she came out to Point Reyes to have lunch and saw a plot of land for sale on the Point Reyes mesa. She fell in love with it, was able to purchase it, and over the next 11 years, while still working in San Francisco, designed and built a house and a second unit on the property.
In 1995, Patsy moved into her Point Reyes home full time. She recognizes that not everyone has such good fortune, so when she moved here and saw the “appallingly” high rents out of reach of local workers, she rented the second unit on the property to a local worker. She has had a long-term tenant living there at an affordable rent for many years.
Patsy has followed the work of CLAM since it began. Now 86 years old, she has decided that the best way to share her good fortune is to add housing for local workers to the community by leaving her home to CLAM so that someone else can benefit after she is no longer able to live there.
Patsy’s gift is both specific and creative: she has willed her home to a local service worker she knows, who will own it in collaboration with CLAM. As with CLAM’s other land trust homes, the new owner will own the house itself while CLAM will own the property, leasing it to the homeowner for a nominal annual fee. In this way, Patsy’s home will be owned by a local working person who could not otherwise afford to own a home in Point Reyes, and the home will remain affordable forever through the community land trust model of homeownership, in which each successive owner buys the home at an affordable price through CLAM. The second unit on the property will continue to be rented affordably, in perpetuity, when the property is transferred to CLAM.
We are enormously grateful to Patsy and Ruth to have the honor of stewarding their homes for the benefit of our West Marin community and its future generations.