Artist Flee Kieselhorst and Realtor Julia Preston Bari. Photo: C. Wagner Photography
Artist Flee Kieselhorst and child.
Photo: C. Wagner Photography
About Artist Space Trust
Artist Space Trust (AST) is the nation’s first Community Land Trust exclusively dedicated to securing and stewarding permanently affordable, community-owned housing and creative spaces for artists. Through our programs we stem artist displacement and provide solutions to systematic housing injustice. AST cultivates vibrant, empowered communities that value the holistic wellbeing of artists. AST is a joint program of Vital Arts and Northern California Land Trust, and serves San Francisco Bay Area artists.
300 Homes for Artists by 2036
At the center of this work is AST’s Artist Housing Commons: a growing, distributed network of housing and live/work spaces held outside the for-profit real estate market and shaped through multiple pathways and partnerships. The AST Commons is not a single site or development, but a portfolio stewarded over time to reach a scale at which our affordable artist housing becomes visible, resilient, and durable enough to meaningfully counter displacement. By securing housing and live/work spaces across neighborhoods and geographies, AST works toward foundationally stabilizing the lives of low-income artists across the region, particularly for those most impacted by structural housing inequities.
Through this work, AST advances housing justice and community wellbeing simultaneously. Stable artist housing strengthens neighborhoods, supports cultural continuity, and contributes to healthier, more connected communities. Working alongside artists, donors, and partners, AST builds housing solutions that are non-extractive, adaptable, and grounded in care — recognizing that when artists are able to stay, communities thrive.
For current housing opportunities and free workshops: artistspacetrust.org
Header photo:
AST, NCLT, property donors and first time artist homeowners, 2025.
Photo: Flee Kieselhorst