Fund for an Inclusive California Awards $2 Million to Strengthen Housing Justice Movement and Critical Response Efforts

OAKLAND, Calif. — Feb. 17, 2026 — The Fund for an Inclusive California (F4ICA) today announced $2 million in grants to support grassroots movement building, infrastructure, and rapid response efforts across the state. This reflects a $300,000 increase over the previous year’s grantmaking, in a time when organizations are seeing philanthropic support shrink. This significant investment reaffirms the Fund for an Inclusive California‘s commitment to community-driven solutions, ensuring that all Californians have access to dignified, well-maintained, and affordable homes, in communities that nurture a sense of rootedness and belonging.

“We know that lasting change happens when communities are resourced and supported to come together, step into their leadership, and build the collective power needed to shape their own futures,” said Emily Duma, Director of Housing Justice Initiatives at Common Counsel Foundation. “These grants honor a remarkable network of organizations that are advancing tenant protections, bridging efforts across regions, and demonstrating the possibilities that arise when communities organize for housing justice. Together, they are shaping a future in which every Californian has a voice and decisionmaking power in the places they call home.”

L to R: Warehouse Workers Resource Center, Long Beach Residents Empowered (LiBRE), North Bay Organizing Project, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco

Since 2018, the Fund has grown deep partnerships and funded an ecosystem of 43 organizations advancing work in four geographic regions and statewide coalitions, marking a sustained eight-year investment in long-term efforts to build community power in California. The Fund is a collaborative led by Common Counsel Foundation, with philanthropic partners such as The California Endowment, James Irvine Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, and Weingart Foundation, co-governing with community partners to set the strategy and direct resources. 

In this latest funding round, F4ICA has awarded $1.6 million in general operating support grants to 31 community-based organizations. These partners are foundational to the housing justice movement in the Bay Area, Central Valley, Inland Region, Los Angeles and across California working together to cultivate the political power necessary for communities to pursue self-determination. 

“With sustained investments we are able to set the vision for our communities and build towards it together,” said Saa’un Bell, Executive Vice President of Power California and member of the F4ICA Steering Committee, “We are showing what is possible when tenants, workers, families, and communities show up for each other and show up together in these critical moments. We are driving the decisions and solutions put forth about our homes, schools, jobs, and for healthy and safe environments for our families.”

L to R: Long Beach Residents Empowered (LiBRE), East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)

Recognizing the evolving political landscape, in addition to the core support the Fund’s community-led governance allocated $405,000 in additional funding to 14 partner organizations responding to mounting political threats targeting low-income, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. By providing resources that support organizations’ leadership and deepen relationships across regions, F4ICA stands with community leaders as they work together to wield collective power, respond to new challenges, and create solutions for their communities. 

Among the grants, three stand out for advancing the leading edge of the housing justice movement with funding that allows organizations to get involved in ballot measures and wield community to shape the plans and policies that impact their communities:

• Leadership Counsel and Power California: These organizations are co-anchors of the Central Valley People’s Housing Coalition, a regional coalition in the San Joaquin Valley that has built alignment and coordination between several F4ICA core partners in the region. They have a pivotal opportunity to create a collective organizing strategy for the next two election cycles in Fresno, to elect, educate and engage a new Fresno City Council on key housing policies this fall.
• Redwood City Ballot Measure Campaign: This campaign will back community organizing for a ballot initiative that would establish new tenant protections and set a precedent for rent control and housing justice in San Mateo County.
• Long Beach Residents Empowered (LiBRE): This funding provides resources that strengthen LiBRE’s collaboration with partners as they lay the groundwork for a community-driven revenue measure, modeled after Los Angeles’ Measure ULA, to generate sustainable funding for affordable housing, tenant resources and a variety of other social services in Long Beach.

Together, these initiatives are illustrative of a powerful shift toward long-term organizing and community control over housing and land decisions that is possible with sustained support, beyond boom and bust fund trends and election cycles. See the full list of organizations and more about the efforts responding and planning in this evolving political reality. 

This grantmaking cycle reflects F4ICA’s vision of a collaborative philanthropic landscape that centers and follows the leadership of those most affected by housing insecurity. Funders who are committed to investing in affordable housing, immigrant rights, and racial justice, rooted in the wisdom, relationships, and priorities of communities themselves, are invited to join this shared effort to build vibrant, inclusive communities across California.

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More about grants made to respond to threats and seize new possibilities:

California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) – Unincorporated Community Justice Program

CRLA is a trusted partner to low-income immigrant families living in mobile home parks. Resources will support CRLA to work with residents in Merced and Tulare Counties to address habitability issues and work towards community ownership of the mobile home parks. CRLA has faced significant financial cuts this past year, imperilling their ability to maintain and grow their body of work focused on manufactured housing communities.

Power California

Power California has co-anchored a regional coalition in the San Joaquin Valley that has built alignment and coordination between several F4ICA core partners in the region. The coalition is poised to create a collective organizing plan for the next two election cycles, with a crucial opportunity to elect, educate and engage a new Fresno City Council on key housing policies this fall.

California Center for Movement Legal Services

Given the dearth of services during a time of escalating attacks on immigrants, California Center for Movement Legal Services is playing a critical role to expand legal resources for immigrants and tenants in the San Joaquin  Valley. This organization demonstrates how partnerships with tenant basebuilding organizations like ACCE Institute lead to victories for low-income tenants. It is this collaborative approach that is especially exciting as the Center’s reach expands to more areas in the state.

Tenants Together

Tenants Together is a critical statewide convener of local tenant organizations. These Strategic Adaptation resources are intended to bolster the network as it has faced unpredictable losses in public and philanthropic support. Additionally, resources will support Tenants Together and its member organizations to convene safely in Fresno in 2026 and strengthen the organizing capacity of the San Joaquin Valley. 

Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (Leadership Counsel)

Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability is working to protect its community-informed wins codified in Riverside County’s 6th Cycle Housing Element. Additional resources will support the momentum of wins like AB 806, as Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability engages mobile home park residents in know-your-rights training. Leadership Counsel also co-anchors the Central Valley People’s Housing Coalition, which has a crucial opportunity to educate and engage a new Fresno City Council on key housing policies this fall.

Warehouse Workers Resource Center 

Warehouse Workers Resource Center is strengthening collaboration across southern California on multiple fronts and is calling attention to the impact of ICE raids on workers’ housing security. Resources will support the coordinated response to heightened immigration enforcement across Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties, and calls attention to the impact of ICE raids on workers’ housing security.

ACT-LA

Measure ULA represents a transformative, non-market housing solution that has set a model for the state of what a robust public revenue source can make possible. In response, housing justice organizers are facing intensified political and real-estate driven attacks in an attempt to weaken or dismantle this legislation that communities fought hard to win. Additional resources will support ACT-LA and its coalition partners to ensure that the social housing movement in Los Angeles is sustained and its visionary solutions are defended from political erosion.

Long Beach Residents Empowered (LiBRE)

LiBRE effectively engages local leaders and collaborates with fellow movement partners to advance policies that have a material effect on Long Beach residents. Additional resources will support LiBRE’s collaboration with Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy to lay the groundwork for a local ballot measure that would generate revenue for housing production, preservation, outreach and education, alongside other social services.

Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA)

KIWA is a strong collaborator that brings the perspectives and leadership of immigrant renters and workers to every coalition table. Recently, KIWA has taken on additional work to make sure their members are trained to defend democracy and respond to new threats around immigration enforcement and climate disasters.

Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco  (HRCSF)

Additional resources will support HRCSF’s deepened investment in member leaders so that they can fully engage in networks like Homes for All-California. HRC SF will adapt critical tools like their political education curriculum to include and train members on how to respond to current political conditions. By linking housing justice and economic redistribution to anti-authoritarian resistance, support for HR SF’s strengthened infrastructure has the opportunity to yield lessons that can be shared with the broader housing justice movement.

Rising Juntos

Additional resources will support Rising Juntos to collaborate with ACCE Action to advance a ballot initiative for the upcoming 2026 election. This ballot initiative seeks to establish safeguards for renters in San Pablo, a city where two-thirds of all renters are rent burdened. 

East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)

Facing greater political threats, EBASE’s organizing and coalition building has adapted to meet these challenges while continuing to build the leadership, solidarity, coalitions and partnerships needed for long-term advances toward housing justice. Additional resources will support EBASE’s efforts to integrate immigrant rights and communities of care into organizing Latinx and immigrant communities.

Faith in Action Bay Area (for the Action Fund)

Faith in Action Fund is bringing forth a ballot measure for the 2026 election. If successful, the ballot measure would enact rent control in Redwood City and would be the first of its kind in San Mateo County. The success of this campaign has the potential to inspire similar protections in neighboring cities.

North Bay Organizing Project

North Bay Organizing Project is responding to an increase in immigration enforcement by preparing Sonoma County tenants associations with know-your-rights training and by creating novel models of building-wide or mobile home park-wide responses.

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The Fund for an Inclusive California (F4ICA) is a collaborative funding initiative, co-designed with grassroots leaders to advance racial and economic equity. For the last eight years, we have aligned funders to build and sustain a fund that has awarded $17 million to innovative, community-driven housing justice efforts. This collective work has changed policy and centered community priorities at the local, regional, and state levels, achieving impressive and unprecedented wins.