“The Pilsen cooperative, affectionately called PIHCO (Pilsen Housing Cooperative), arises due to the need for displacement of families in this neighborhood. Low-income families, workers, artists, businesspeople, were being displaced by condominiums, these ‘developers’ were buying homes and building new properties to rent them at higher prices,” explained Karen León, co-president of PIHCO.
These situations pushed its co-founders and early collaborators—the muralist Héctor Duarte, journalist Linda Lutton, artist Gabriel Villa, designer Carlyn So, researcher Laura Nussbaum-Barberena, and cultural worker Amanda Cortés—to propose solutions to save their residence in Pilsen, to stop the displacement and help themselves as a community, since families were being displaced and they are the heart of Pilsen’s culture, León indicated.
Although the idea of forming the cooperative started in 2017, the acquisition of the first building of this cooperative did not materialize until 2020. This building is located at 1910 S Wolcott in Pilsen and houses six families. Two years later, in February 2022, they acquired the second building located on Morgan Street, with six units as well, and the purchase of the third building located on Oakley Avenue, which also houses six families, was made in November 2022.
PIHCO is a limited-equity cooperative and those who are part of it accumulate some individual equity during their stay, but not at the market rate.
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