Introduction to Youth Power and Leadership in Community Land Trust Practice
By Richard Kruger Delgado
The following contribution was written by Richard Kruger Delgado, Education and Outreach Manger for the International Center for Community Land Trusts as a contribution to the upcoming webinar on “Stewarding the Future: Youth Power and Leadership in Community Land Trust Practice” on 4 December.
“The price that a nation pays for not constructively engaging and supporting its youth is ultimately far greater than what any natural disaster or armed conflict can possibly extract from its coffers.” (Delgado and Staples, 2007)
“The dreams of youth are the blueprints for a better world.”
This unattributed quote from a youth organizer gets at the heart of the connection between youths and their communities. What are we missing when we fail to engage young people in the urgent tasks of creating healthy, livable, and just communities? What possible futures are foreclosed when youth are not allowed a seat at the table of power and decision-making? As members of the international CLT movement, we can make the question more specific—what does it mean for a model of community-led development on community-owned land, one premised on the principles of stewardship over long-time scales, if it is not engaging those very members who will inherit the fruits of that stewardship?
Moving beyond “engaging” with youth, what does it mean to foster youth leadership and power within community development? As one of the above quotes states, the cost is not limited to a disengaged youth population, but the health and well-being of communities writ large. The cost is not about “money” but the social and political consequences that a failure to engage youth meaningfully can bring to a society or community. The climate crisis lays bare those consequences: a problem continually exacerbated by the “adults” is one in which today’s young people will feel the majority of the consequences. Failing to engage youth in the stewardship of their future is a crime against the future. So how do we meaningfully engage youth in their own social, economic, and political development? What can CLTs do to engage the youth in their communities? And why are CLTs well-suited to developing youth power through engagement and leadership?
The foundation of CLT practice is based on stewarding members and community assets in perpetuity, which means that CLT is well-placed to engage and build youth power. It could be argued that it needs to be an essential part of the CLT stewardship mission, necessary for creating the future leaders, organizers, and practitioners of the CLT movement. Instead of making a strong positive statement about why CLTs should not ignore young people, the statement can be turned around: what do we miss when we don’t engage them?
At the CLT Center, we have come to see this topic as key for the future of CLT practice. Why? One of our goals for the Center moving forward is the intersection of housing justice and justice for communities in the face of climate change. For us, CLTs are a strategy, grounded in the principles of land justice and stewardship, that enable justice and equity for communities in the face of a transition to a decarbonized world. Yet, this transition is often being led from the top down—from local and national governments and international policy-making institutions. How do we guarantee justice for communities within these transition plans? Here at the CLT Center, we believe that CLTs are a strategy and solution for guaranteeing justice in the face of climate change. And it’s for that reason that we must engage and build youth power and leadership within the CLT movement. There is no group better placed to not only provide the “dreams” that can serve as a vision for just futures, but also lead the way in setting priorities in the present when it comes to communities, housing, and climate justice.
That’s why for the CLT Center’s next webinar, we’ll be exploring this topic with past and current youth organizers: how CLTs are engaging youth and enabling those youth to lead, participate, and steward community well-being. Join us on Wed 4 December at 12 PM Eastern Standard / 6 PM Central European Time for “Stewarding the Future: Youth Power and Leadership in Community Land Trust Practice.”
We will be joined by three CLT practitioners to discuss this topic, all of whom have backgrounds as or with youth organizers and/or activists. Jason Webb, from Grounded Solutions Network, will join us to talk about his experience as a youth in the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. Ashley Allen, Executive Director of Houston CLT, will share about how Houston CLT is engaging with youth in the Houston community; and finally, Carlos Sanchez-Gonzales, former youth activist and current Youth Organizer at South Baltimore CLT, will take us through the history of Free Your Voice, a youth organization that was not only instrumental in creating South Baltimore CLT but continues to this day to activate students at Ben Franklin High School in South Baltimore around issues of housing and environmental justice.