Our Mission
CLAM strengthens communities in West Marin through the creation and stewardship of permanently affordable homes.
Our Vision
We envision a diverse West Marin community where people have a secure place to call home.
Our Values
CLAM's core values are the ideals and principles that are the heartbeat of our organization and guides our decision making and action.
Belonging: We believe that housing is a human right, and that a mix of ages, races, ethnicities, and incomes contributes to our economic and social vibrancy.
Stability: A mix of rental and home ownership options provides an essential foundation for families and communities to thrive.
Community Stewardship: We create and steward permanently affordable housing and are governed by our members, who include the residents of our homes and the broader community.
Integrity: We create an environment of trust, compassion, and fiscal responsibility.
Collaboration: We cultivate and embrace partnerships with all who work for the benefit of West Marin.
CLAM Timeline
The Stage is Set
The 34-unit Point Reyes Family Homes Project created by the Ecumenical Association for Housing (EAH) is completed. Financial pressures force EAH to sell the single-family homes meant to be affordable at market price. Many in the community recognize that, although the remaining affordable homes created here are a good start, more are needed, preferably under local community control.
The Early Visionaries
More than a dozen community members meet in living rooms, around kitchen tables, and at Tomales Bay Foods to explore creating a different kind of housing organization: a Community Land Trust.
CLAM Incorporates
Eleanore Despina and Susan Scott assist with filing CLAM's Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, and application for tax exemption. CLAM forms its first board, with Ann Sherree Greenbaum as President.
“When I was hired, Susan Brayton [Board secretary at the time] handed me this box of files, which I took to the back of my kitchen. That was the CLAM office for the first few years.”
— Rae Levine, CLAM Founding Executive Director
Rae Levine is hired as one-day-a-week Coordinator
As Coordinator (and later, Executive Director) Rae develops a culture of appreciation, collaboration, and fun that remains with CLAM and an ongoing pillar of CLAM’s success.
First community “CLAMbake”
One hundred people gather at the Dance Palace to learn about the Community Land Trust model and partake in a giant cauldron of clam chowder. All join as members on the spot.
First Financing
Marshall Livingston, then-Board President, devises a way for homeowners who built the owner-built homes in the 1980s as part of the Manzanal Homeowners Association in Point Reyes to retire the 2nd deeds of trust that CLAM holds on their properties, resulting in sufficient funds for CLAM to buy its first property.
CLAM’s first home!
Realtor Dan Morse helps CLAM acquire its first property, a single-family home in Inverness Park, which CLAM converted into two affordable rentals.
CLAM facilitates a tenants-in-common (TIC) purchase
This was not a CLAM acquisition, but it showed CLAM's commitment to work with the community to create housing solutions. The property, in Inverness Park, was purchased by two families with young children. Tenancy in common is an arrangement where two or more people share ownership rights in a property or parcel of land.
CLAM’s second home!
After many attempts to buy a second property, CLAM finally acquires a two-unit property in Point Reyes Station. The front house, dubbed the “Blue House,” undergoes energy-efficient LEED-level renovation. The back house is torn down to make way for the first new-construction home in California built on the “passive house” model of high energy efficiency.
Passive House
With the help of Terry Nordbye, Jim Campe, Bill Logan, James Bill, and others, CLAM completes the first new-construction passive home in California by rebuilding the second unit on the Blue House property.
Mesa Apartments
CLAM acquires the 4-unit Mesa Apartments in Point Reyes Station, one of only a handful of multi-unit structures in the area.
Rae Levine moves on
With her inspired leadership, professional skill, hard work, and positive camaraderie through all CLAM’s early challenges, Rae Levine took CLAM from a fledgling organization to an active and robust 12-member Board of Directors dedicated to carrying the CLAM mission forward.
Sam Grant Hired
Sam Grant is hired as Executive Director, bringing community organizing skills from Minnesota and returning there after a little over a year due to family needs. During his short tenure, At CLAM, Sam popularized the idea of affordable homes with local young adults, whose skilled contributions would be greatly welcomed– if only they could afford to remain in the area.
Kim Thompson hired as Executive Director
Coming from community organizing with immigrants in Fresno, California, Kim brings many talents, including gifts of positive relationship skills and tireless diligence to the task of continuing to serve the need for affordable homes in the Tomales Bay Watershed.
CLAM Fundraising Committee Member Christa Burgoyne considering color options for CLAM’s first CLT homeownership home. Several passersby shouted out their preference for the color options painted on the front of the house.
CLAM’s first CLT homeownership home!
CLAM completes a thorough and energy-efficient renovation of a foreclosed home it purchased in 2013. With help from local attorney Martha Howard, CLAM sells the home to first-time homebuyers on the CLT model, the first sale of its kind in Marin County.
The Road to the Coast Guard Begins
Richard Kirschman notifies CLAM of the federal government’s plan to sell the vacant Coast Guard housing neighborhood in Point Reyes Station to the highest bidder. CLAM and its supporters begin organizing to reclaim the property for local, affordable homes and community benefit.
Stinson’s first affordable homes
The Stinson Beach community enlists CLAM to acquire an 8-unit apartment building in Stinson Beach. CLAM’s purchase creates the first affordable homes in Stinson Beach and prevents the displacement of the building’s long-time residents.
Local homeowners create Real Community Rentals
CLAM’s Real Community Rentals Program helps local homeowners create affordable second units in their own homes in an innovative county-backed project. By 2020, the program has created 24 new rentals.
CLAM’s second CLT homeownership home
Originally intended to be one of the EAH’s affordable home ownership homes but sold at market rate, CLAM’s 2017 purchase returns the home to its original intent. A year later, a local family of five purchases the home, the second home owned on the CLT model in Marin County.
Inverness Foundation donates Leah Crane’s Inverness property to CLAM
CLAM becomes the ultimate recipient of Leah Crane’s bequest, adding two new permanently affordable homes in Inverness
CLAM/Eden Selected to Redevelop Coast Guard
Marin Board of Supervisors unanimously selects the CLAM/Eden Housing team, widely backed by community support, as the redevelopers to turn the former Coast Guard housing site into an affordable housing neighborhood.
Shift in Leadership
After 8 years of guiding CLAM through a period of significant growth, Executive Director Kim Thompson transitions into a new role as Director of Community Engagement. A powerful voice for CLAM in the community, Kim continues to unite people for CLAM’s common purpose, inspiring optimism and action. Former Project Manager Stacey Laumann steps into the role of Acting Executive Director and sees CLAM through the stressful COVID-19 period.
2021
CLAM benefited from the support of Interim Executive Director Mary Vradelis during its transition from June 2021 through January 2022. In the summer, over 500 people participated in CLAM’s Neighborhood Design meetings for the Coast Guard. Around the same time, CLAM also successfully advocated for the adoption of the County of Marin’s new Local Coastal Plan (LCP), which changed the zoning of the former Coast Guard site to allow for affordable housing.
2022
CLAM culminated it successful hire of Executive Director Pam Dorr and Development & Communications Director Laura J. Giacomini, who both started in January 2022. It launched its first property acquisition through its Age-in-Place program in January 2022, in which Bobbi Loeb, who is 81 years old, deeded her house to CLAM. In exchange, Ms. Loeb will get to continue living in her home while CLAM pays for much-needed upkeep.
2024
After elevating CLAM’s portfolio by adding two Third Street homes as well as shepherding the Coast Guard Project along on it’s trajectory, Dorr stepped away from the organization in 2024. She was replaced on an interim basis by a familiar face, Corey Ohama who served a CLAM’s Board President from 2019-2021 and Treasurer from 2017-2019 and 2021-2022.