Everything Co-op continues its tribute in honor of the 2023 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees, with an interview of co-op housing advocate, Linda Leaks. Linda and Vernon discuss her cooperative journey, and projections for the future.
Linda Leaks’ organizing of tenants for housing justice and housing cooperatives is legendary in the DC Community. Often referred to as “the Godmother of DC Housing Cooperatives,” she is highly revered and respected as a consummate advocate for addressing housing inequities.
Leaks moved to Washington, DC in 1978, during a period of immense gentrification. As she witnessed the drastic change in the city, she pursued a career that would enable her to address the impact of its transformation. Linda ultimately earned a degree in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University.
In 1982, Leaks led the founding of a collective house in Northwest DC with three other black women. Known as the “T Street Collective,” it became a hub of Black feminist organizing in a depressed neighborhood still dotted with boarded-up buildings and with hardly any businesses.
In 1986, she landed her first job as a tenant organizer with Washington Inner-city Self Help (WISH), whose mission was, in part, to help organize tenants to form limited equity housing co-ops to maintain their homes. Leaks even took her organizing skills to South Africa, where she helped organize in the early 1990s the first housing cooperatives in Johannesburg.
Over the next few decades, Linda became the Executive Director of WISH, and led battles to convert dozens of apartment buildings into housing cooperatives in DC. She did so by coaching frightened tenants on how to manage cooperatives, protest, advocate and otherwise overcome the actions of city officials, landlords, and developers’ who were intent on pushing people out in favor of luxury high-rent housing. As Leaks worked to secure co-op ownership for tenants, she developed educational materials and trainings uniquely designed to help renters transition to owners. Many of her mentees are still carrying on her legacy of tenant advocacy.
The 2023 Everything Co-op List: Vernon Oakes’ Picks for Heart, Mind, Body, Soul, and Community
For nearly 10 years, Vernon Oakes, Everything Co-op’s founder and host, has dedicated himself and the show to promoting the cooperative model to build economic resilience, expand employment, and provide dignity of work and home. It does this by highlighting and amplifying the work, products, and services of cooperatives, their members, and their allies.
This year we are proud to expand those efforts by offering a thought-fully curated list of products and services from the cooperative community centered around five categories, each mirroring Vernon’s interests – Heart, Mind, Body, Soul, and Community. These categories embrace a wide variety of items that reflect the cooperative ethos of mutual support, sustainability, and community welfare.
We’re inviting the community to help select these products and services. If you provide a product or service that you would like to highlight or if you are a customer of a product or service, please feel free to submit them. (Submit Link)
