Leveraging collective resources to increase access to the affordable co-ownership of homes and commercial spaces.
Our Mission
Willow Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is a queer and trans BIPOC-led cooperative business committed to cultivating healing and liberation through community-centered real estate investment.
*Willow PREC is a for profit cooperative, fiscally sponsored by Arise for Social Justice Inc. allowing for your donations to be tax-deductable when contributed directly through them.
Willow PREC is Committed To
a multi-generational, cross-racial, cross-class movement that centers those who are most systemically impacted by capitalism, the carceral state, racism, ableism, transphobia, and homophobia.
Our Vision and Values
Implementing sustainable community-centered models for living and working through non-extractive cooperative real estate investment.
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Housing & Land Stewardship
Securing land and housing in order to co-create sustainable opportunities for housing and land stewardship that centers QTBIPoC and other historically excluded individuals and families.
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Skill Sharing
Cultivating opportunities for skill developent in cooperatives, systems of governance, responsible and sustainable living & home maintenance.
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Community & Care
Fostering spaces for community, art, healing, celebration, connection, and care. Supporting the development of a network anchored in our mutual liberation
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Sustainability
Providing pathways for self-sustainability by way of food sovereignty, land justice, renewable energy, farming, and biodiversity.
MEET THE TEAM
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Trenda Loftin | Founding Director & Board President
Trenda (She/Her) is actively integrating her work as an educator, social justice facilitator and consultant, embodiment coach, theatre artist, and REALTOR into the cultivation of Willow PREC. While she couldn’t have imagined that this is what she’d be doing 20+ years ago, envisioning a cooperative network that creates spaces for home and work security while contributing to liberation of all feels in exact alignment! Holding a vision that is much too large for her to carry on her own, she is thrilled to be partnered with and to continue to partner with others who are fired up about the lack of affordable housing, those who recognize and disrupt the patterns of oppression.
Trenda is a REALTOR with Coldwell Banker Community REALTORS | For non-Willow PREC real estate matters contact trenda.loftin@cbcommunityrealtors.com
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Sawna Caradwyn | Director of Finance and Operations & Board Treasurer
Sawna (She/Her) has a deep drive to understand how and why, which makes her a great problem solver. Her biggest puzzle to date is herself and she is still working on it. She is a student of the Tao and is passionate about communication, connection, and community. She is excited to be using her education in business and accounting to participate in making Willow PREC’s vision a reality for the community she loves.
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Early Contributors & Supporters
Special thanks goes to all those who have and continue to contribute to Willow PREC’s development!
Earliest Contributors: Andrew, Leila, Koko, Olivia, Terna, MawuLisa, & Jaycelle.
Extra special thank you to Causha Spellman-Timmons for your support in moving Willow PREC through incorporation and establishing early models for how we move as an organization.
Early Supporters: Cooperative Development Institute, Mama Jenn, Revan, Eric, Jonathan, Mel, Gab, Carl, The Compost Cooperative, Oxbow Design Build, Wellspring, Massachusetts LGBTQ Commission, East Bay PREC, & many more!
THANK YOU | THANK YOU | THANK YOU
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COMING SOON: Introducing Our Advisory Board
Willow PREC has an incredible group of 7 Community Advisory Board members who have agreed to bring their questions, their thoughts, and their expertise to advise Willow PREC staff on the continued development and implementation of our model.
Willow PREC Supported Initiatives
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Valley Alliance for Land Equity (VALE)
Willow PREC has enjoyed partnering with individuals and organizations from across Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin Co. MA to build a coalition of housing and land justice cultivators, since 2022.
Valley Alliance for Land Equity’s mission is:
To scale up the availability of permanently affordable, democratically-governed, shared equity opportunities for land & housing in Franklin, Hampshire, & Hampden counties. We seek to meaningfully reduce the racialized wealth divide in W Mass, & better meet individual & community needs. -
PARADISE LOT
This home and land represents the beginning of Willow PREC’s journey. It was the first acquisition finalized in October of 2022. Gratitude to the former owners of this home and the visionaries of establishing this urban food forest. The current home and land stewards of Paradise Lot are known for their work as artists, as seed keepers, and community builders.
Paradise Lot is an urban food forest, home to 300+ edible and medicinal plant species. A backyard ecosystem that functions as a center for community food access, learning, art, & sustainability.
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COMPOST CO-OP HOUSING INITIATIVE
Fully Reconstructed and Occupied!
The Compost Co-op House is owned and stewarded by the worker owners of the Compost Co-op and Oxbow Design Build Cooperative. The Compost Co-op is a cooperative business that facilitates the diversion of food waste in Greenfield, MA and surrounding areas. They foster opportunities for meaningful work and ownership opportunities folks who have come out of jail and prison, and others who experience systemic barriers to employment & housing security. Willow PREC has had the honor to support with resident engagement and the development/implimentation of the management system.
How It Works
As a multi-stakeholder cooperative, Willow PREC builds power within and amongst our membership of:
Staff Owners
People who conduct the business of WPREC as an entity. As the cooperative develops, this will include administrative staff, trainers, grant writer, fundraiser, HR, resident owner support and training, co-op support, new project intake, property management team, financial tracking/bookkeeping, membership group coordinator, etc.
Lessee Owners
People/organizations who will build equity through long-term leasing of land, housing, or commercial space in direct partnership with the Cooperative.
Community Owners
People/organizations who participate in member-owner events, programs, group buying options, collective organizing, and participate in governance of the co-operative.
Solidarity Investors
People/organizations who choose to contribute financially and/or through partnership to uplift the overall well-being and possibilities available to the Cooperative.
We are a democratically-run, membership-based organization sustained by shared commitments and the contributions of our members.
We build partnerships with like-minded regional cooperative organizations to expand our knowledge, resource, and buying power to acquire community control over land, housing & commercial properties.
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Anyone can seek membership with WPREC if they are committed to our core values including cultivating liberation and community building by increasing access to collective stewardship of land and commercial spaces while centering BIPOC folx and those historically excluded from participation in such endeavors.
Join our Advisory Board!
We are seeking individuals who are committed to seeing Willow PREC succeed and are willing to contribute their thoughts and expertise through participating on our Advisory Board. APPLY HERE
Contribute & Build with Us
The reality of houselessness, eviction, foreclosure, and displacement are ever-present issues facing marginalized communities. Histories of systematic racism in the housing market compound barriers, making it nearly impossible to buy and/or keep a home.
Willow PREC wants to shift this!
Willow PREC seeks the contributions from those with shared liberatory principles.
We seek contributors who believe that housing is a human right.
We believe members and contributors are equal accomplices in the work towards resource mobilization, land liberation, and reparations-based redistribution.
Amp up the Community GoFundMe campaign by clicking here and contributing directly to Willow PREC
Looking for a tax-deductible way to give? Contribute through our fiscal sponsor by Clicking Here
Willow PREC is a for profit cooperative business, fiscally sponsored by Arise for Social Justice Inc. allowing for your contributions to be tax-deductable when contributed directly through them.