A model of community ownership, self-determination, and belonging

In San Diego, California, refugees displaced from Myanmar (formerly Burma), Somalia, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and other countries have resettled in Mid-City. Over the decades, they’ve transformed this once-blighted area into an urban village of small businesses, restaurants, and cultural spaces.  

Today, due to rising real estate prices, families who have resettled here—many after enduring war, persecution, and climate disasters—are finding themselves housing insecure and displaced again. Community organizations like the one I founded, Partnership for the Advancement of Americans (PANA), also found ourselves facing displacement.  

We began a search for a permanent community space in 2021. We collected data showing that refugee families experience housing insecurity and unemployment rates three times the county’s average, and compared it with the limited transitional housing and supportive services available. We examined indicators that improve health and life outcomes, including affordable housing, work opportunities, child care, and health care. Through this process, we developed a vision to create a cultural hub and housing campus for refugees and other newcomers–through community ownership. 

Building community wealth through community-owned land 

We imagined something bold. What if this land could become a living blueprint for belonging? A Global Village. Along with a government agency and a dozen community organizations, we raised $8.5 million in public and private funding and purchased 2.2 acres right in the heart of Mid-City. Here, affordable housing, community spaces, and small business opportunities are integrated for refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs and worker co-ops. 

Pairing community-owned land with strategies for wealth creation is the foundation for the Global Village. Vendors who once operated informally can expand, elders feeling isolated can share their heritage with younger generations, and community events are rooted in a place where traditions are reflected and celebrated. Most importantly, people can play and create, gather and connect, nourish, and dream in a full vision of home and belonging.  

Community land trusts can be a powerful tool to create or preserve housing affordability. Data from the National Community Land Trust Network shows that residents of such community-owned lands build 25% more wealth over 10 years compared to traditional homeowners in similar markets. While most community land trusts focus on housing, the Global Village will also support small businesses that support people holistically using models such as entrepreneurship support, employee-owned worker co-ops, and shared cultural space. This is a fundamental role shift for nonprofits from service delivery and advocacy to facilitating community ownership and wealth building—where communities build and own assets that generate sustainable resources. 

Leveraging cultural assets for economic development and community ownership 

Based on our first-hand experience, we know community development with refugees and immigrants taking the lead allows us to build on existing cultural strengths. Our community members bring rich traditions of community organizing, mutual aid, and power building. The Global Village centers culture in economic development, wealth building, addressing the housing affordability crisis, and community building. Think: Somali tea, Syrian prayer scarves, Ethiopian coffee.  We also studied models like La Cocina to create pathways for informal economies to formalize.  

This approach to community ownership requires nonprofits to recognize community members as economic actors with valuable cultural knowledge, not just recipients of services. Economic development programs succeed when they treat cultural practices as business assets rather than barriers to overcome.  

We’ve learned a lot so far, including the importance of:  

Designing with community participation:  Over 2,000 refugees and immigrants developed a vision for and designed the plan for integrated housing, commercial and gathering spaces, and a cultural hub. They spoke of desires for multicultural living and recreation, and they shared both big dreams and plans to make them a reality. There is community buy-in because this is their design. This means they’re actively involved in every phase and aspect of the initiative—from how we’ll fund the project to how we’ll fill it with vibrant events, programming, and tenants.  

Shared governance: Sharing leadership across multiple nonprofits is difficult but worth it. Our Global Village is governed by over a dozen nonprofit partners. We collaborate on funding streams and invite funders to support approaches that share resources across organizations and report on collective impact. Each of the community organizations can also lead components of the ambitious project, meaning that we’re moving from a “winners take all” model of funding and programming to a collaborative and sustainable one. 

Adapting to new metrics and timelines for community ownership: Traditional nonprofit metrics—individuals served, units built—fail to capture the true impact of community-led development. Community ownership urges us to consider new ways of measuring how systems do or do not set people up to succeed, and when decision-making power is shared. A commitment to transferring planning, development, and ownership roles to community members impacts development timelines. This requires the partnership of investors with patient capital- an investment that has a long-term approach—and legal and financial expertise to navigate ownership structures. 

Building shared prosperity 

The Global Village is currently in the pre-development phase of collaborating with architects to translate our community’s vision into built form. We’re working to meet our fundraising goals and expect to break ground on housing and civic spaces in the next two years. 

San Diego, like many cities across the country, is facing multiple crises—housing shortages, economic instability, and an increasingly volatile environment for refugees and immigrants. The Global Village can serve as a blueprint for developing thriving, supportive community ecosystems to help displaced families rebuild a sense of home, belonging, and self-determination. If we can get it right for refugees, there’s no reason we can’t get it right for all families. 

Photo credit: Partnership for the Advancement of Americans