In rural places like West Marin, where vast landscapes and small populations shape daily life, communities depend on informal networks. And when disruption ripples through — as it is now amid a mounting housing crisis — there is little to catch people when things go wrong.

Here, that disruption reflects a hard balancing act at Point Reyes National Seashore: how to restore and protect fragile ecosystems while also reckoning with the futures of dozens of working families whose livelihoods have long been bound to the land.

Our latest Rural Funders’ Working Group webinar focused on the loss of housing for many families as ranches close. It also explored how funders — alongside land trusts and other community partners — are stepping in to help provide a safety net.

The conversation featured Valeria Brabata of the West Marin Fund, Cassandra Benjamin of the Marin Community Foundation, and Jarrod Russell of the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin (CLAM).

Protected land, precarious housing

Just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, West Marin is a region of rolling hills, working farms, rugged coastline, and nearly a dozen small towns. Agriculture and tourism shape the region’s economy, with Latino families comprising most of the essential workforce supporting restaurants, visitor services, and the farms and ranches that define West Marin’s working landscape.

Many of these families have lived in the area for generations and are deeply embedded in local schools, businesses, and everyday community life, yet they remain largely absent from official census counts.

At the same time, Marin is one of the wealthiest counties in California, with extremely high housing prices and little affordable housing. For decades, ranches and farms have partially filled that gap by providing housing that working families could afford, though often in substandard conditions.

Funders filling gaps

While the settlement resolved long-running disputes over grazing on public lands, workers were not represented in the negotiations.

“Some ranch owners provided meaningful severance to longtime employees,” the Marin Community Foundation’s Benjamin said. “Others provided little, and in several cases, none at all.”

What quickly became clear was how unevenly prepared local systems were for the scale of need. Organizations accustomed to supporting a handful of households were suddenly facing dozens of families at once. With no single institution positioned to respond across housing, workforce, and social services, the West Marin Fund and the Marin Community Foundation worked closely with CLAM to convene a cross-sector working group connecting housing providers, case management organizations, legal services, health providers, employment support organizations, and county partners. The group functioned as a shared hub where information could move, gaps could surface, and decisions could be made.

Seeing the problem 

West Marin’s fragile housing situation was not a surprise. The Marin Community Foundation, in partnership with Marin County, had already supported a comprehensive housing study, Growing Together, showing that informal, ranch-based housing offered a crucial supply of affordable housing — albeit sometimes in overcrowded or substandard units. The study also underscored that when people lose housing, the region’s entire ecosystem faces disruption, including restaurants, farms, schools, and local services that depend on their presence. When the closures were eventually announced, the report’s analysis of needs allowed the community to move faster. 

Meanwhile, in a region where traditional affordable housing is difficult because parcels are small, expensive and often limited by lack of septic systems, the most likely provider of new affordable housing was CLAM. Still, the need far exceeded anything the land trust had taken on before. Over two decades, CLAM had developed fewer than 30 homes. It was now being asked to deliver roughly that many in a much shorter window.

“The only reason that a small nonprofit like ours is even able to step up to this is because we’re not doing it alone,” said CLAM executive director Russell, pointing to early commitments from the West Marin Fund, the Marin Community Foundation, and Marin County that made it possible to shift from incremental development to large-scale response.

Scaling under pressure 

Flexible, multi-year philanthropic funding allowed CLAM to move quickly on properties, cover predevelopment and operating costs, and pursue solutions before public funding could realistically come online. At the same time, Marin County adopted a temporary emergency shelter declaration that allowed projects to move faster through permitting in a region where zoning, septic limits, and coastal regulations typically slow housing development.

Together, those moves changed what was possible. “Crisis turned us into more of an enabling environment,” Benjamin said.

With no single site able to absorb the need quickly, CLAM pursued a scattered-site approach across West Marin — acquiring small, relatively turnkey properties, negotiating master leases, and developing interim housing such as tiny homes on wheels.

One site alone is expected to host 14 interim homes, while other acquisitions have already allowed six families — about 30 people — to move into stable housing, many just  before the holidays. Additional sites are in development or negotiation, creating a path to stabilize all displaced households while permanent housing is planned and financed.

Beyond philanthropy

Even with coordinated funder and county action, not every consequence of the transition could be addressed through formal channels.

“There was a lot of anger, and a lot of mistrust. Families were feeling really hurt and left out — angry at institutions, at the county, at everything. Organizing became essential to respond to that,” Brabata said.

Through groups including Familias Afectadas por el Rancho (FAR), farmworkers and their families organized mutual aid, raising more than $160,000 to support eight workers and families who received no severance. FAR also helped turn lived experience into public action. Displaced ranch families showed up to testify before the Marin County Board of Supervisors in support of CLAM’s housing projects — often taking time off work, traveling over the hill to San Rafael, and speaking publicly despite real personal risk. Their presence helped secure approvals for interim housing and ensured decisions reflected the realities families were living.

Learning together

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