Hi friends,

At 5C Environmental Justice, we work with a Pomona-based organization called Integrative Development Initiative (IDI), which "envisions a world where all people come together to ensure everyone’s basic needs are met now and for generations to come." We regularly attend Food Cycle Collective, a bicycle street outreach program in the City of Pomona and assist IDI with community composting from our school dining halls.

EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENT: We are helping IDI with their Commons Restoration Land Trust Initiative, a model for affordable housing, neighborhood food production, and cooperative living, which provides for enduring housing, food security, and neighborhood stabilization. In addition, the initiative intends to address and eliminate the fears and mechanisms that drive land speculation and the individual accumulation of wealth rather than investments in everyone's needs.

IDI is working on a land trust in San Diego and now they are looking to build a community farm housing coop in Pomona! This involves collaborating with an interested landowner, the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ), and the Southern California Agricultural Land Foundation to transition private property to a land trust. While land trusts are sometimes abused by developers, they remain one of the most powerful tools we have to contest the understanding of land as a means to make money. They ensure the land continues to be dedicated to an established mission.

IDI envisions this initiative will accommodate permanently affordable superadobe housing for hyper local community farmers, a community center, and farm where residents will produce food for the people of Pomona. The project would provide stability for undocumented community members and break the landlord-tenant relationship that leaves people vulnerable to warehouse development.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! To pitch the project to larger partners like CCAEJ, IDI needs $3,500 to conduct an appraisal of the land. Both IDI and the existing landowner need appraisals before they can move forward.

Can you chip in? Your donation will make this project happen and contribute to environmental justice and community health in the Inland Empire. As the federal government strips funding and protections, it is critical that we look out for all of our neighbors. Suggested donation of $20.