FAQs

A healthy neighborhood is one with opportunities that enable all people to live healthy and vibrant lives. Increasingly, research shows that our health and well-being is dependent on a range of interconnected social, economic and physical factors that impact the environments where people live, learn, work, and play. These factors – known as the social determinants of health – and the resulting health inequities play out dramatically at the neighborhood level.

Through our Healthy Neighborhoods approach to community development, we are evaluating each neighborhood where we work through the social determinants lens. Certain determinants – housing options, income and wealth, and social cohesion – have always been and will continue to be central to the work of EBALDC. However, over the past several years, we have also become more focused on collaboration, convening strong neighborhood partnership networks, working with coalitions of residents, businesses, community and faith-based organizations, educational institutions, and other public agencies to better understand the needs of our neighborhoods as a way to better identify priorities, develop strategies and build partnerships to address the unique challenges in each neighborhood. This comprehensive perspective helps those we work with – at an individual and institutional level – begin a path toward healthy, stable and fulfilling lives in a holistic, sustainable way.

Learn more about our Healthy Neighborhoods Approach in our Strategic Plan.

Housing is generally considered “affordable” when it costs less than 30% of a household’s income. For example, if a family earns $3,000 per month, their rent or mortgage plus utility bills must be less than $900 per month to be considered “affordable.”

EBALDC is one of several affordable housing organizations in the greater Bay Area. You can find out more about our housing options here.

For a robust discussion of what affordable housing accomplishes, please visit the East Bay Housing Organization’s page.

Community development is a sector that involves organizations from multiple fields that share a common focus on improving low-income communities. This is often through the development and financing of affordable housing, businesses, community centers, health clinics, job training programs, and services to support children, youth, and families. It is not a discrete academic discipline or an accredited field like public health; it is more like a set of activities involving organizations that come from fields including affordable housing, city planning, finance, law, public health, public policy, real estate, and social work. At its best, community development achieves equity by addressing many of the factors, or social determinants, that affect public health.

Community Development Corporations (CDCs) are neighborhood-based nonprofit organizations that work at both local and national levels, provide leadership in the sector, often working alongside a multitude of groups including government agencies, neighborhood residents, philanthropic organizations, real estate developers, and social service providers. They implement community development projects, and often function as intermediaries between community-based service providers, public agencies, and investors like financial institutions and philanthropic organizations.

This information was excerpted from Build Healthy Places Network’s glossary.

EBALDC takes an inclusive position to community development. We believe long-time, low-income residents are assets to the neighborhood as well as the entire San Francisco Bay Area. EBALDC does not support the displacement of residents associated with gentrification, and know that those at lower income levels are often at greatest risk for displacement.

EBALDC believes that mixed-income neighborhoods are healthy neighborhoods. That means that we are not against providing housing for people at all income levels, but believe it is imperative to proactively preserve housing opportunities for people at lower income levels because the market will naturally tend towards providing housing for higher income households.

We serve all diverse populations of Oakland and East Bay.

We are headquartered in Downtown Oakland, minutes from the 19th Street BART station and serve Oakland and the East Bay.

To qualify for affordable housing, there are different types of requirements, generally based on income. You must also be signed up on one of EBALDC’s lists – the Annual Marketing List or Project-Based Voucher List.

• The Annual Marketing List is EBALDC’s online leasing database, which allows you to apply to and be considered for Below Market Rate (BMR) / Affordable Housing units that become available during the year throughout our existing properties. Please note, the Annual Marketing List opens each year in the month of April and is announced via our website, print media outlets, website, and/or social media. For information on when and how to apply, please check our How To Apply page.
• The Project-Based Voucher (PBV) waitlist openings are announced via our website, print media outlets, website, and/or social media. For information on when and how to apply, please check our How To Apply page.

Please note that the leasing process for new EBALDC buildings starts about 6 months prior to the official building opening.  New building leasing information is announced via our website, print media outlets, and/or social media. Regularly check our How To Apply page for those details.

Residential Vacancies
There are an average of 100 residential vacancies per year, and these are filled as stated above via our lists. For information on when and how to apply, please check our How To Apply page.

Commercial Vacancies

Please see the attached PDF for our Available or Upcoming Space as of Mar 2021. Also, see our Properties page for information on our spaces. For leasing inquiries, please contact us at commercialleasing@ebaldc.org or 510.606.1808.