20 Apr Coming Home: North Richmond Residents Buy Back Their Community

D’Shawn Goodwin is a key figure in an organized effort to help longtime Black residents of North Richmond like himself buy back properties from the former Las Deltas housing project.

Story and photos by Denis Perez-Bravo

In North Richmond, Black residents have organized to buy back 25 dilapidated units in the abandoned Las Deltas housing projects following a unique collaboration that prioritized former residents. 

North Richmond, an unincorporated community just outside Richmond city limits, became a destination for Black families migrating from the South during World War II to work in the shipyards. 

Over time, residents have faced environmental challenges and decades of disinvestment. Rising housing costs have pushed some families out of the community they once called home. 

Still, North Richmond remains a resilient place, shaped by generations of history, struggle and love. 

Now, after more than a decade of organizing, North Richmond residents are not just watching redevelopment happen around them. Through a first-of-its-kind preference policy, many are becoming homeowners in the very community they fought to stay in, a rare example of development without displacement.

“I think it’s very important for you to know, I don’t think it’s ever been done before,” said lifelong North Richmond resident D’Shawn Goodwin. 

The success of the initiative stands as a rare victory for a neighborhood often overlooked. 

For North Richmond, a historically Black community, the buyback is a direct challenge to decades of displacement. Using below-market sales, “right to return” policies, a community land trust model and grassroots organizing, residents are turning blighted properties into permanent affordable housing. 

“Everybody got a slogan, ‘Buy Back the Block,’” Goodwin said. “But we really just did it.”

His motivations stem from the regional displacement and the financial strain that many Black Bay Area residents face. In the San Francisco Bay Area, including Richmond, Black residents experience the highest rate of housing cost burden; more than 50% of Black renters spend over 30% of their income on housing, according to the San Francisco Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice.

 

Goodwin’s roots in North Richmond stretch back to an era when the neighborhood was a beacon for those seeking a new life on the West Coast. His family arrived in the 1940s and, like many others, found work at the shipyards, slowly building a legacy. 

“My family came here in the ’40s, bought their land right there on Sixth Street and basically worked at the shipyard,” Goodwin said, “and built little, small houses before they were able to build big houses in the front.”

Over time, the family home became a gateway for relatives fleeing the Jim Crow South. Goodwin describes the house as a vital “hub” for cousins migrating toward opportunity.

“Like a lot of my cousins from the South came to our house first when they came to the West Coast,” he said. “So when they left the South, this was like a landing point, you know, a breath of fresh air.” 

Through these generations of migration and labor, the community established its identity as a historical center for minority families.

“So North Richmond was always a minority hub and always been there,” Goodwin said. 

The Las Deltas Community provided more than 200 units of affordable housing, dating back to the 1950s. But in 2020, after decades of underfunding and a lack of maintenance, the project was decommissioned and the last residents relocated. At the time, there was no clear path for the people who called the neighborhood home to stay there.

“The plan was to just sell them. And that was it,” said Richmond LAND executive director Princess Robinson.

While Robinson and Alfonzo Leon were participating in the Richmond LAND Building Power Fellowship, they began to envision the North Richmond EcoVillage.

“The North Richmond EcoVillage was envisioned as a community-driven redevelopment concept that would reimagine two parcels out of the former Las Deltas projects that were sitting right in front of the only elementary school there,” Robinson said. 

The project plans to introduce 12 community land trust condominium units, consisting of eight family units and four small cottages. 

“The community land trust model is a permanent affordable housing tool model that we are using to keep our community in place,” Robinson said.

To bring this vision into life, the Housing Authority of Contra Costa County and Richmond LAND worked to sell the properties back to the community in phases rather than selling to the highest bidder on the open market. 

Robinson said they partnered with the Partnership for the Bay’s Future to implement “Just Right to Return” and “Local Preference” policies, which prioritize former residents and people with ties to the neighborhood. 

The first phase involved selling property at below-market rates. Four developers were awarded sites: Richmond LAND, the Community Housing Development Corporation, Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, and the Richmond Community Foundation. Together, they are redeveloping 16 below-market-rate units. 

The second phase involved selling 18 parcels at market rate — and this is where people like Goodwin stepped up.

“I started off just as a community member going to the meetings,” he said.

That was in July 2025. At that time, the window to purchase was nearing 60 days. Goodwin became a conduit of information for others while pursuing a property himself.

“We had classes every Monday,” he said. “Teaching people about credit, teaching people about how to buy a house, teaching people about first-time-buyer ownership.” 

Goodwin worked with Richmond LAND, CHDC, Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, and RCF to organize the “Buy Back the Jets” housing fair. The event, which took place Aug. 2, 2025, on Silver Avenue, connected interested buyers with financial institutions and counselors. 

 

Following the event, residents had until approximately Oct. 10 to close on their properties or enter escrow.

“At least get ’em in escrow, get your pre-approval together to lock it in,” Goodwin said.

He said the momentum has continued into 2026.

“Right now, a lot of people are closing to this day because the government shut down and now people are able to start closing on their property,” he said.

Like Goodwin, Anthony Woodards is working to take the community back for other people.

Born and raised in North Richmond, Woodards is a battalion chief with the Richmond Fire Department. He now lives in Oakland. 

Two years ago, he heard through word of mouth from a cousin and his mother, who works with senior citizens, about an opportunity to buy property in the neighborhood.

Woodards isn’t planning to move back, but he wants to help other people he says were “forced out” to return.

“This is an opportunity to purchase and give back to people that had lived here,” he said. “Whole generations were uprooted, and my plan is for me to buy and provide opportunities for Black-owned businesses and Black-owned stores.”

Woodards said he remembers what North Richmond looked like when he was growing up and sees it starting to change.

He said the people who lived in those places no longer live there. The only reason he purchased property, Woodards said, is because his cousin, who also grew up there, talked to him about it.

Now, he and his cousin are planning to get the property ready to be lived in.

The buildings on the property have been sitting for so long that it requires a full renovation. 

Woodards is also pursuing two other separate units.

Any property with five or more external doors is considered commercial, and both fall under that category, requiring thousands of dollars in additional costs, he said.

“So I’m facing that, and I am working with the county to help break this up,” Woodards said.

 

For residents like Goodwin and Woodards, the goal is more than buying property. It is about creating opportunities for people with ties to North Richmond to remain in the community. 

Goodwin stood at the corner of Market Avenue and Fred Jackson Way, where his two units are located. As he spoke to The Pulse, car horns, waves and smiles from family and friends interrupted the interview as they passed by. 

“This is my first property,” Goodwin said. “It is a sense of pride.” 

He said being part of the community meetings and connecting neighbors to resources was one of the most meaningful parts of the process. These are people he grew up with, he said, and now they are becoming homeowners in the neighborhood.  

“Well, it’s not really my journey. It is like we are doing it together,” he said. 

Goodwin said he is excited for the future of Las Deltas and the development of the EcoVillage. 

For now, his focus is on renovating the two homes and bringing them back to life. 

“So what I want to do is get it livable where a family can come in, or a nonprofit can be here and use this property for some greater good,” Goodwin said.