CLAM is a nonprofit organization created to acquire and hold land for the benefit of the community and its future generations. Our mission is to provide stable and permanently affordable homes in an environmentally responsible way in the communities surrounding Tomales Bay. As a community land trust, CLAM holds land and housing in trust for the community in perpetuity while creating housing that working people can afford.
VISION
We envision young families growing here, children and grandchildren living nearby, working members of the community able to live here, and elderly community members able to remain in their homes. The stability of home ownership and affordable rentals will ensure a strong and diverse community fabric.
There are many routes to creating affordable homes, involving the following strategies:
• Donations of property
• Donations of homes
• Assisting local families to purchase properties as tenants-in-common
• Assisting home owners to create affordable rentals by converting vacation rentals, legalizing existing second units, or building new second units
HISTORY – WHAT WE’VE DONE
Since its founding in 2001 by local residents, CLAM has provided 20 affordable homes and assisted two families to purchase a tenants-in-common property.
2005: Purchased a single-family home and converted it into two affordable rentals.
2006: Facilitated a tenants-in-common home purchase for two long-time area families with young children.
2009: Purchased and renovated a single-family home using modern energy-efficient methods, providing an important model for bringing older-home renovations into line with climate change and energy use concerns.
2010: Built the first new-construction passive house as a second unit, employing highly energy-efficient methods.
2010: Purchased a four-unit apartment building in Point Reyes Station.
2013: Purchased and renovated a house in Inverness.
2014: Sold the house in Inverness as a Community Land Trust home—the buyers own the home and have a long-term lease on the land while CLAM retains ownership of the land. This home will remain affordable for the next family that buys it—and all the families following, while each ownership family realizes the equity they invest.
2014: Began a long-term project to acquire the Coast Guard Housing Facility in Point Reyes Station for the benefit of the community.
2016: At the request of the Stinson Beach community, CLAM acquired an 8-unit apartment complex in Stinson, preventing the displacement of 6 long-time residents, and creating that community’s first affordable homes.
Began the Real Community Rentals program, which partners with local homeowners to create affordable rentals on their property.
2017: Purchased a home in Point Reyes Station that had orginally been designed for affordable home -ownership by Ecumenical Association for Housing (EAH), but had been lost to the market.
2018: Sold the home in Point Reyes Station on the Community Land Trust model, to a family of five with children in the local school.
HOMES FOR THE COMMUNITY – NOW AND FOR THE FUTURE
You can help. Together we can create affordable homes in Inverness, Point Reyes, Olema, Marshall, and Tomales. Not only will families benefit from CLAM housing as soon as it is established, but 100 families, 150 families, 200 families—and the communities they contribute to—will all benefit from this housing over the decades that follow. When you match your vision to ours—a vision of a healthy, stable community that thrives with a wide range of community members—CLAM’s vision will become a lasting reality.
