Africatown Community Land Trust
About Africatown
The mission of Africatown Community Land Trust Mission is to acquire, develop and steward land in Greater Seattle to empower & preserve the Black Diaspora community. Africatown Community Land Trust serves the Central District community and the greater Seattle region.
CREST Representative: TraeAnna Holiday (she/her)
Why did you join CREST?
To learn about different ownership and development models.
If you are working on a project, what is the project, where is it located, and who is it for? What is the vision and purpose of your project?
Africatown Plaza, located in the Central District on 23rd and Spring, for bringing displaced families back to their community. The vision is to create spaces that elevate the black lived experience within the CD.
What are you proud to have accomplished so far related to your project or related to your community stewardship of land efforts?
I'm proud that we have received specific funding from the city to move the project forward. It's a way of acknowledging the importance of building affordable housing with black-led leadership, which is key to balancing the historic scales that gentrification has created.
What are the next steps for your organization in realizing your project vision?
Continuing to get funding for the project, continuing to engage our community on the project, and working to establish an efficient program to incorporate local artist and art that's reflective of the black lived experience into the building.
What support and expertise are you looking for?
Fundraising support.
TraeAnna Holiday, CREST cohort member from Africatown Seattle:
"I am so honored to be a part of what Puget Sound Sage is doing in this city. They brought together 20 organizations who may not have known each other, and together we are taking progressive models that are happening across the nation to reform and develop our spaces, have ownership in our spaces, create and rebuild our communities, and reclaim what has been taken from us. I represent Africatown Seattle, and if you know of what the Central District has gone through - it has suffered a great deal of gentrification, inequity and displacement. Africatown is working hard on the ground to develop buildings that are bringing our communities back.
For me, this is very personal. My family was displaced in 2003 and my parents had to buy a home in Federal Way. I have never known of Federal Way before. I grew up in the Central area, and it was all I knew for my whole life. It was so heartbreaking to my mother for us to have to move. We are one family, but displacement has affected so many more. This is why I’m so excited to be a part of this cohort. With the work of Puget Sound Sage, I am learning more on how to do this in a progressive way, ensure that we keep affordability for our communities and for our people, and to come back to spaces that we grew up in that we know and love.”