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09.22.26

Community First: What the Global South and New York’s CLT and Housing Movements Can Learn from Each Other

Event Global Exchange
September 22nd, 2026
5:45pm - 8:00pm
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 W 59th St 9th fl, New York, NY, USA

Hannah Anousheh is a lifelong New Yorker and Bronx Science alumna. She helped found ENYCLT six years ago and serves as its Director. She grew up in Manhattan, in a large rent-stabilized building complex with a powerful tenant association where her parents still live. Prior to her role at the ENYCLT, she worked as an organizer and researcher for UNITE HERE, the international union of hotel and restaurant workers, organizing with airport concessions and tech cafeteria workers. She has a Masters Degree from Pratt Institute in City and Regional Planning.

Tarcyla Fidalgo is the Lead for Global South Community Land Trust Initiative in Brazil, where she has coordinated the Termo Territorial Coletivo project with Catalytic Communities since 2018. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Institute of Urban Planning and Research (IPPUR) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and a Master's degree in City Law from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). She has over 10 years of activism in the fight for land and housing rights, particularly in land regularization and eviction processes.

Ben Harris is Communications Director at the International Center for CLTs, where he leads global communications, multilingual campaigns, and cross-regional partnerships to advance and serve the global CLT movement. He previously spent four and a half years at United Nations University, working at the intersection of research and policy communications. He holds a Monitoring and Evaluation certificate from the International Training Centre of the ILO and speaks Spanish and Portuguese, with working proficiency in French and some Arabic. Ben has lived and worked across Latin America for six years and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York.

Arielle Hersh leads UHAB’s policy and advocacy to preserve affordable co-ops, protect tenants, and expand social housing, including the campaign for the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA). She is an expert on community-controlled housing models like HDFC co-ops and community land trusts (CLTs), and helps tenants organize to preserve their buildings as social housing. Arielle has a background in affordable housing development and tenant organizing, and currently sits on the leadership bodies of Housing Justice for All (HJ4A) and Stabilizing NYC. She holds a master’s in Urban Policy and Leadership from Hunter College and a bachelor’s in Urban Development, Policy, and History from New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Alejandro Garcia Lozano (he/they/any) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Coordinator of the Environmental Justice & Sustainability Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). Dr. Garcia Lozano’s current research examines the efforts of different collectives in NYC to restore and protect urban nature, to shape development and climate-related interventions in the city, and to reclaim urban coastal spaces as public and as commons that should create benefits for communities rather than profit. Previously, Dr. Garcia Lozano Alejandro was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center (University of Washington), where they led a collaborative research project on labor and decent work in fishing. Before that, Dr. Garcia Lozano earned a Ph.D. in Marine Science and Conservation from Duke University, where their doctoral research focused on the history and politics of collective action among fishing cooperatives in Mexico.

Aditi is a South Asian urban planner, practicing across the U.S., and in Mumbai. Aditi grew up in the suburbs of Mumbai, in a low-income incremental housing project which deeply influenced her belief in stable and affordable co-operative housing. With the lived experiences of two decades, and as a trained community architect and urbanist, Aditi works with non-profit organizations in Mumbai, Delhi, New York, and Jersey, to build political agency and self-determination in communities that are historically undermined in urban planning processes. Aditi works as a Participatory Research Manager with Habitat for Humanity International and is on the board of International Center for Community Land Trust.

Join us for a conversation about community power and land rights in Rio de Janeiro with Tarcyla Fidalgo, together with New York City housing movement leaders.

Rio’s Termo Territorial Coletivo, or Favela Community Land Trust, was born out of the large-scale evictions that displaced residents ahead of the 2016 Olympics. The movement has succeeded in securing and upgrading adequate housing through a model that prioritizes climate resilience and community ownership.

Tarcyla Fidalgo will share lessons from organizing community land trusts in Rio’s informal settlements, followed by a conversation with New York City practitioners on what Global South models teach us about community power, tenure security, and the limits of top-down housing solutions. The evening then turns to the room: small group roundtables will give local organizers, CLT practitioners, and housing advocates the opportunity to share their own work and reflect on what these lessons mean for NYC’s fights over land, public banking, and community control.

How can communities build lasting power over the land they live on, and what can we learn from each other across vastly different contexts?

RSVP
Guest & Accessibility Policies

This event is open to Urban Design Forum Fellows, their invited guests and ICCLT + NYCCLI guests.

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully.

  • The venue will have an entrance and elevators that are ADA-accessible.
  • This event will have microphones and speakers.
  • If you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Face masks are encouraged, particularly if you have been recently exposed to colds, flus, or other illness. If you have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days, a high-quality, well-fitting face covering is required at all times.
  • Please refrain from wearing strong fragrances to accommodate guests with allergies or environmental sensitivities.
  • If you have additional needs, we will do our best to accommodate. Please contact rsvp@urbandesignforum.org.
About Global Exchange

Global Exchange connects New York City’s civic community to the world’s foremost urban leaders and inspires creative change around shared challenges, from housing and infrastructure to health and resilience. The Global Exchange Speaker Series brings experts from around the world to New York City for lectures and conversations with an audience of distinguished leaders across the fields of policy, advocacy, design, philanthropy, planning and law. 

About Our Program Partners

The International Center for Community Land Trusts is a not-for-profit nongovernmental organization established in 2018 to promote and to support community land trusts and similar strategies of community-led development on community-owned land in countries throughout the world. For more information, visit cltweb.org.

The NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI) is an alliance of social justice and affordable housing organizations working to advance Community Land Trusts (CLTs) to address root causes of homelessness and displacement. NYCCLI members include emerging and established CLTs and other grassroots and citywide groups organizing for deeply- and permanently-affordable housing, commercial and community spaces, and other neighborhood-led development. For more information visit nyccli.org.

The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City.

Continuing Education

This event has been approved for 1.5 AIA LU and AICP CES credit for Forum Members.

Support

Lead Sponsor

We thank Global Circle members Akerman LLP, Apple Bank, Crescere Collaborative, Fogarty Finger, HKS, Jamie von Klemperer, KPF, Office for the Next Environment, Skylight, and Upside Collab.

Global Exchange is made possible with additional support from our Board of Directors, Circle Members, and company and individual members. Our programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

To learn more about supporting Global Exchange, please contact Miranda Bellizia, miranda@urbandesignform.org.

Image Credit: Bárbara Dias / ComCat / TTC

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