Shalaco and the SF Land Trust

Shalaco was(is) exactly the kind of person I envisioned ODE for - he’s interesting, he has a great story, and he has a cause. The San Francisco Land Trust.

The San Francisco Community Land Trust is a bastion of hope and rationality in a city of exorbitant rents. The SF Land Trust brings all community stakeholders together – bankers, lawyers, the Board of Supervisors, and residents – to not just help keep people in their homes, but to provide those who could never afford to own outright share in the dream of home ownership.

Shalaco, an artist, photographer and concerned San Franciscan is the Board President of the SF Land Trust. He is but one of the passionate members of this community of change-agents that is making a positive impact on a City in the midst of an epic housing crunch.

Shalaco is but one face among many who are taking action to help people become vested in a city marginalized by a tech boom that is pushing more and more families into the streets. He is a millennial who bucks the self-absorbed, apathetic stereotype that’s unfairly maligned his generation. Though there are so many others who are part of the Land Trust Story he deserves recognition for the work he’s done.

This ODE honors Shalaco, the man and citizen, but it honors also the spirit of community and common sense problem-solving that is the San Francisco Land Trust. And though this may seem like a first-world problem, it does represent an all-world solution. The answers to our most pressing issues do not reside in an individual but in a group of individuals with a common interest. The world aches for home, but it also aches for decency and justice.