Webinar Recap: Youth Power and Leadership in CLT Practice

By Richard Kruger Delgado

All resources related to this webinar can found here and below.

The following is a recap of the webinar on “Stewarding the Future: Youth Power and Leadership in CLT Practice,” that took place on 4 December 2024. The panel was moderated by Richard Kruger Delgado, Education and Outreach Manager for the International Center for Community Land Trusts. The panel featured the following speakers:

  • Ashley Allen, PhD, Houston Community Land Trust, Executive Director
  • Autumn Rose, Prairie View A&M University, Architecture & Construction Science Undergraduate
  • Carlos Sanchez-Gonzales, South Baltimore CLT, Youth Outreach Specialist
  • Jason Webb, Grounded Solutions Network, Community and Technical Assistance Principal

Despite the range of ages and positions, all of the panelists share a history of youth engagement which has shaped and continues to shape their trajectories in the CLT movement. Their engagement with issues of homelessness, poverty, and the state of their communities as young people were experiences that shaped their journey as CLT practitioners. Jason, who grew up in the Dudley Street area of Boston, Massachusetts, which at the time faced issues of abandonment and vacancy, shared how his mentorship by Gus Newport not only shaped his journey but helped to shape how the DSNI would later incorporate youth on the board of directors of the organization. Carlos Sanchez-Gonzales came to South Baltimore CLT through his work as a youth leader for environmental justice at Free Your Voice while he was a high school student. Ashley Allen’s experience of being unhoused throughout her youth propelled her to seek solutions and train as an organizer after college and then after 12 years of working with youth to transition into the world of CLTs as the Executive Director of Houston CLT. Autumn Rose, a sophomore at Prairie View A&M, joined us to talk about her experience as a student working with the Houston CLT to work on designs for new homes for the land trust, and how the CLT model spoke to her as someone whose family faces the threat of gentrification-led displacement in Houston. 

Alongside these personal histories, the panelists shared the work that their CLTs are doing to engage youth today, with many of these practices building on histories of youth organizing and engagement. Jason’s experience with DSNI from an early age provided him the mentorship and initial experience that would lead to advocacy for funds for youth work in the organization, the creation of a youth committee and to eventually the creation of a seat on the Board of Directors for a youth representative. During Jason’s time as Executive Director of the CLT, DSNI created CommunityScapes, a youth-designed and -led summer jobs program that worked with over 200 youth over a five-year period. 

Carlos represents the second generation of Free Your Voice leaders to come from Benjamin Franklin High School. When the largest incinerator in US history was proposed for a location less than a mile from their school in 2011, students organized to learn, organize, and fight against the development of the incinerator. Their organizing work over five years led to the company that was to develop the incinerator ultimately pulling out. The successful struggle against this development led to the search for new tools to protect South Baltimore residents against environmental injustice and provide development that would stabilize communities, leading directly to the creation of SBCLT. 

Ashley Allen talked about the importance of continuing to build and support the broader community of land trust members. Helping local students to achieve their educational goals, Houston CLT provides a scholarship, named after Gus Newport and Charles Sherrod. They also partner with two local universities, Rice University and Prairie View A&M University, to research what housing shortages existed and the typologies that were missing and could address those shortages. They also wanted to ensure that the new build housing being developed responded to what existing communities wanted, centering their experiences. Students at the Prairie View School of Architecture were engaged to design homes for historic communities that were facing gentrification. Houston CLT sent them out into the communities and tasked them with the challenge of moving beyond the designs of for-profit developers and to bring a community focus into their designs. These home designs were to be developed in the Third Ward community, one that is under intense gentrification in Houston.

One of the students engaged in this partnership is Autumn Rose. Autumn, herself a native Houstonian, can see the changes happening to the city, even in the community where Prairie View is located. Autumn’s engagement with Houston CLT through this project has not only allowed her to chase her architectural dreams, but contribute to the fight against displacement in the city and also bring climate disaster resilience into affordable housing. Autumn’s designs respond to the recent climate change driven history of Houston, featuring elevated foundations that can mitigate flood impacts. Despite the fact that the area Autumn is designing for is on a 500-year flood plain (meaning that there is a chance for catastrophic flood impacts in this area once every 500 years), she felt that looking toward the future there was no guarantee that it would always remain within a 500-year flood plain. 

During the discussion section of the panel, Jason, Carlos, and Ashley all spoke to the challenges that come with engaging young people from the struggle for young people’s attention against technology, to the more pressing structural challenges related to funding youth engagement work among low-income communities. Related to the world-narrowing effects of technology, Ashley spoke to the shared intergenerational challenge of understanding how the issues facing local communities are affecting communities around the world, and the need to connect these struggles. Carlos spoke specifically to the systemic challenges in South Baltimore, with many youth often having to work to provide an income to their families. Having funding that can not only fund youth engagement work but also provide pay for the work that youth do in that engagement is important. 

At the end of the discussion, Carlos and Autumn, as the two current youths on the panel, were asked to reflect on the lessons they had learned from their experiences and the motivation they gained. What drove them to do this as a young person? Autumn spoke to the opportunity to connect with other people, people who were facing the specter of gentrification, unaffordability, and the loss of communities. She also spoke to the challenges she would face as an adult, one that many adults are facing—the housing crisis. Carlos shared that for him the spark was understanding that he was a part of something bigger than himself, and that small contributions could lead to something greater. These contributions don’t have to look a certain way—as Carlos shared, “whatever thing you’re good at—art, speaking, science, development—everything plays a role and…making sure that students are able to see that being part of something bigger and fighting for their communities, fighting for in my example, for affordable housing…being able to connect with them on that personal level allows them to draw closer and feel that connection.”  

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