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We sat down with Justin Powers, Founder and President of Sierra Shared Spaces, joined by Bryan Osorio of Building Healthy Communities Kern, to discuss how Sierra Shared Spaces is building a community hub in Lake Isabella to bring economic, job, and social infrastructure to the Kern River Valley, with support from California Jobs First and the Kern Coalition.
Project Snapshot:
Can you introduce Sierra Shared Spaces and how this Catalyst project fits in?
Justin: Sierra Shared Spaces is a local nonprofit in the Kern River Valley building a community hub in Lake Isabella. It grew out of Kernville Cowork, a small rural co-working space I started about eight years ago because I wanted to see more support for remote work, entrepreneurship, and small business here. After seeing the impact a small space can have - we asked what it would look like to take it to the next level and address the valley's needs more holistically. Along the way, we’ve connected with international pioneers of social purpose real estate like Creative Blueprint that have really helped us realize what is possible in a community like ours.
The result is an ambitious community hub with coworking and offices, a large modern event space, a shared commercial kitchen and cafe, a community garden, and room for organizations that serve our community but have no footprint here. It will serve as crucial community infrastructure during natural disasters like wildfires. The Catalyst project takes the last three years of building with the community and gets us one step closer to a built reality.
What is the Catalyst funding making possible, and what makes your approach different?
Justin: The funding supports three things. First, the groundwork: we've connected with more than 120 organizations about the role they want to play, and we're building out the membership, operating models, and more. Second, continued co-creation, which is an important distinction: this hub is being built by the community rather than for it. Third, and the largest share, is the design work itself. Architecture, engineering, and environmental studies for a brand new build are expensive and much harder to fund than the construction itself.
We've brought on Ashley Proctor of Creative Blueprint, a pioneer of the coworking and social purpose real estate movements, to help lead elements of the development and design – drawing from over 23 years of experience building coworking spaces and community hubs. Once you have plans, construction is easier to fundraise for, so Catalyst is funding the critical early stage that gets us there.
How has being part of the coalition shaped this work?
Justin: This is a community that hasn't historically seen investment. We're geographically isolated, with generational poverty and little social or economic infrastructure. At its core the hub is exactly that: economic, job, and social infrastructure. I'm the seventh generation of my family in the Kern River Valley, and I don't recall ever seeing an investment like the Catalyst Fund in community-owned infrastructure here. Bryan has been a real cheerleader, showing up to our co-creation events, engaging, and getting to know our community, and the coalition connected us to other awardees and to a tour of the CAPK Central Kitchen as we plan our own commercial kitchen.
Bryan: What Sierra Shared Spaces is taking on addresses the forgotten investment in rural communities, the gap that opens when government and private investors aren't looking our way. This hub is a chance for local innovators to see that high-wage, location-independent jobs are possible in rural Kern County, and I hope it becomes a proven example of the need to invest in our rural communities.What milestones are you most proud of so far?Justin: During the Catalyst phase, we've had over 250 attendees at co-creation events. These aren't people sitting through a presentation - they're in real dialogue, pouring out their collective knowledge of what the valley needs. We've turned many of our 120-plus conversations into partnerships, held intentional consultations with Indigenous tribes, and engaged with an architect & design team, who are about to hit the ground running. The land is a story in itself: before we acquired it, community members kept pointing to the same spot, so the 2.9-acre site we secured, right next to a nature preserve, is deeply meaningful.
How do you see this benefiting Kern County more broadly?
Justin: This infrastructure will help drive the recreation economy that powers the Kern River Valley, and at the same time we're also proving a model for rural shared spaces that can transfer to other communities throughout Kern County. But the biggest impact is changing the narrative. When you drive down the boulevard in Lake Isabella and see demolished hotels and vacant storefronts, you start to believe that's all we're capable of. If instead you drive by a new community hub every day and know jobs are being created and lives changed there, you start asking what else is possible. We want to move this community from surviving to thriving.
Bryan: The Central Valley is known for brain drain, where we educate our students and then lose that talent. In a more isolated rural community that's even harder. To me this is a workforce strategy that brings people in and, just as importantly, helps retain local talent and build a local workforce.
What's the best way for someone reading this to get involved?
Justin: We still need additional partners to meet our community’s needs, so any connections to potential partners or organizations that want to be involved are welcome. You can visit our website at https://sierrashared.space, email us at hello@sierrashared.space, as well as coming to our events - with the next event happening on September 16th. And because we need to move straight from design into construction, connections to funders who can drive the construction phase forward are critical. There are volunteer opportunities on the site as well.
