Under the Lens

Community Ownership Takes Center Stage

Community land trusts and cooperatives are two of the most prominent models of community ownership, and ones we’ve written about for many years. In this series we take a focused look at some of the ways these forms of community ownership are evolving.

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In purple chalk, it says "Housing is a Human Right."
Community Control

Housing Solutions—Centering Community in Ownership, Control, and Long-Term Affordability

How is community control of housing realized? We explore different community ownership structures, how tenants form a cooperative, and how larger housing nonprofits can incorporate residents into decision-making.

Community Control

Understanding Community Land Trusts

What are CLTs? How do they work? What are the benefits and areas of concern? An overview.

Community Control

Atlanta Land Trust—From Central Server to a Centralized CLT

If at first you don’t succeed, partner with a land bank.

Community Control

Interboro CLT: A Committed Pipeline from Powerhouse Community Development Groups

Four New York-based organizations work together to place every homeownership unit they develop into a community land trust.

Community Control

Scaling Up: How Some Community Land Trusts Are Getting Bigger

The community land trust model is in a time of dramatic growth and creativity. Some CLTs are aiming for larger scale than has been typical. How are they doing it?

Community Control

First a Park, Then a Citywide Land Trust in D.C.

Douglass Community Land Trust began with a desire to prevent a new park from displacing neighborhood residents—but it soon got much bigger.

Community Control

Champlain Housing Trust: Breadth and Depth

Over 2,400 rental apartments, 600 shared-equity homes, cooperatives, and a couple of hotels for the unhoused—How the largest community land trust in the U.S. scaled up.

Community Control

Community Land Trusts: Combining Scale and Community Control

This is no longer my neighborhood.” Too often, communities of color that experience new investments report that the changes are a detriment to their lives, and a benefit to newcomers, […]

Community Control

Keeping Community Control as Community Land Trusts Grow

When a CLT grows, the “community” it represents can sometimes be more difficult to define. But to some extent it always was.

Community Control

Proud Ground: When Land Is Expensive, Look Outside the City

This community land trust focuses its efforts on helping people of color purchase homes across five counties.

Community Control

From At-Risk Tenants to Activist Property Owners

A little more than a year ago—while the pandemic raged and the economy cratered—a group of 38 low-income, mostly Black and Brown families won an unprecedented, years-long battle to buy […]

Long Island City's high rises.
Community Control

Western Queens CLT: Looking to Start Big, and Not With Residential Units

Western Queens Community Land Trust (WQCLT) was founded in 2019 as the result of a fight against Amazon, which had been eyeing Queens for a potential 250,000-worker campus. The world’s […]

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