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Globeville Elyria Swansea Coalition
LandCampaignExplain
Globeville Elyria Swansea Coalition
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Globeville Elyria Swansea Coalition
LandCampaignExplain
Globeville Elyria Swansea Coalition
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Our Mission

The Globeville, Elyria-Swansea Coalition organizes neighbors to build collective power and to prevent displacement by providing and preserving affordable housing in perpetuity. We organize for health and housing justice through collective neighborhood leadership. We protect our historically exploited neighborhoods through stewardship of community-owned housing, green and commercial spaces. Our organization is community-driven and founded on a shared commitment to economic, racial, and environmental justice.

Community Organizing

  • March 2024: Mayor Johnston pledges ‘community ownership’ for the last slice of the National Western Center
  • March 2024: Caravan Through Neighborhood Starts and Ends with Commitments to Community – GES Gazette
  • January 2024: Green Space vs. Gentrification: Who Will Win?
  • June 2023: GES Coalition Maps Out What It Wants on ‘Triangle’ Land – GES Gazette
  • February 2023: GES Coalition Seeks to Revitalize Public Parcels in Neighborhoods – GES Gazette

Collective Land

  • March 2024: How a Denver neighborhood came together to buy their first community-owned green space
  • December 2023: Tierra Colectiva and GES Coalition Intend to Purchase Vacant Land for Food Forest – GES Gazette
  • November 2023: Affordable Housing Projects Move Forward – GES Gazette
  • May 2023: 4995 Washington Building Starts to Take Shape – GES Gazette

Community Voice

  • March 2024: GES Coalition Public Statement on the NWC federal dollars
  • January 2024: Council approves Near Northwest Area Plan, providing a blueprint for how Northside neighborhoods will look in the future – Denverite, the Denver site!

Making Headlines

April 2025

New workforce development center announced for Denver’s Globeville Elyria-Swansea community

” Centro de los Trabajadores and Tierra Colectiva, the GES Coalition’s community land trust, will train Globeville Elyria-Swansea residents in industries facing worker shortages. “

January 2024

Green space vs. Gentrification: Who will win? 

How do Western mythologies-of cowboys, self-sufficiency and wide open spaces-shape today’s cities? With the annual stock show underway in north Denver, join HCN for a conversation about infrastructure, green space and community hopes for contested land.

December 2024

Tierra Colectiva and GES Coalition Intend to Purchase Vacant Land for Food Forest – GES Gazette

The GES Coalition held a food sale Dec. 2 to raise funds to acquire a vacant plot of land in Swansea. The property, located at 4790 Josephine St., if acquired by Tierra Colectiva Community Land Trust, would transform into a food forest and community space and would be purchased in collaboration by the GES Coalition, Tierra Colectiva and Tierras Verdes.

Our Story

2014

Laying the Foundation

  • Organizing begins around micro-businesses and a commissary kitchen
  • Focus on food justice and health equity
  • Fiscal sponsorship through Focus Points

2015

Starting with a vision

  • Collaborative research by 14 women on the kitchen project
  • Housing crisis organizing begins
  • Anti-displacement coalition forms
  • First shared vision written (Dec 1)

2016

Community Surveying

  • Door-to-door survey: 1,000 doors, 500 responses
  • 88% reported as vulnerable to displacement
  • Comal food incubator is spun off
  • First group attends CLT conference in Utah
  • Organizing ramps up against city and mayor

2017

Vision & Norms

  • Published A Story of Displacement
  • Announced Community Land Trust (CLT) with CCLT
  • Core group writes norms and vision, meets 2–3 times weekly
  • Pressure campaigns begin on city/state
  • Fiscal sponsorship moves to UNE
  • Click the Image below to Read A Story of Displacement

2018

The CLT Takes Root

  • Partners with Brothers Redevelopment + CCLT
  • Wins $2M in funding for replacement housing
  • Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) organizing at 48th & Race
  • Tierra Colectiva transitional board established

2019

Development Pressure

  • Collaborative research by 14 women on the kitchen project
  • Housing crisis organizing begins
  • Anti-displacement coalition forms
  • First shared vision written (Dec 1)

2020

Pandemic and Rebuilding

  • COVID-19 pandemic begins
  • George Floyd’s murder sparks uprising and shift in focus
  • Land organizing at National Western begins
  • City’s P3 at NW fails
  • First neighborhood-wide newsletter is distributed

2021

Campaign for the Land

  • NW land campaign launched
  • Equitable Development Plan published (June)
  • March on the Land (June)
  • Arena bond defeated (July–Nov)
  • Second neighborhood newsletter distributed
David Torres speaks from the porch of his old family home during a protest against public-private partnerships on the “Triangle” parcel of the National Western Complex development site. June 26, 2021.

Current

Growth and Transition

  • Tierra Colectiva reaches 15+ CLT homes, 25 more planned
  • 4995 Washington acquired as commercial space
  • Food Forest launched on Josephine (2024)
  • Land campaign develops Triangle 3D model and People’s Plaza (2022)
  • Mayor commits land (2023 forums, 2024 tour)
  • Triangle scenario planning (2025)
  • Tenant organizing at Longview and Vina (2022–2023)
  • Tenant Power Assembly launches (2024–2025)
  • Becomes an independent nonprofit (2024)
  • Environmental Justice Assemblies (2024)
  • Expands membership and rapid response network (2025)

Meet Our Team

John Doe
John Doe

Executive Director
Email: John@GES.org

Jane Doe
Jane Doe

Executive Director
Email: Jane@GES.org

Jessica Doe
Jessica Doe

Executive Director
Email: Jessica@GES.org

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