Community Land Trusts
A community land trust is a nonprofit, community-based organization that is designed to ensure community stewardship of land. It’s a form of permanently affordable housing in which a community-controlled organization retains ownership of the land and sells or rents the housing on that land to lower-income households.
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How State Coalitions Are Advancing Community Ownership of Housing
In recent years, housing coalitions promoting community land trusts and real estate cooperatives have formed in multiple cities and states—and they are achieving results. Nonetheless, a lot of work is needed to achieve the policy changes these groups desire.
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The Most We Can Do: A National Mandate for Housing Justice
As the United States wrestles with its long history of racial injustice, shared-equity programs stand as one solution to address inequality and exclusion in the realms of housing.
Lasting Affordability Is the Path to Resilience
We now have a unique opportunity, generated by a combination of life-threatening conditions and focused political will stemming from the Black Lives Matter movement, to re-prioritize local housing policies and resources.
The Community Land Trust Movement Imagines Its Future
The 50th anniversary of New Communities was an opportunity for celebration and reflection—some of it critical—about the CLT movement.
New Communities Inc. at 50: Thoughts on Identity and A Different Way Forward
The story of the nation’s very first land trust shows that sometimes it takes people who have been repeatedly left out of systems to shake us into remembering to aim big, consider new strategies, and leave no one behind.
Using Multiple Community-Based Land Trusts to Save Farmland
Agrarian Commons closely resemble community land trusts, but they are unique in that they work collectively to provide long-term affordable and equitable access of small and mid-sized farms.
Are We Diluting the Mission of Community Land Trusts?
CLTs’ dependence on external grant funding to acquire land and maintain their operations make them particularly susceptible to mission drift. Coming in with this knowledge, organizers may still be able to use the tool adequately or opt for other collective land ownership strategy.
It Doesn’t Matter if Your Neighborhood Is Going to Eventually Gentrify
“We could use some gentrification here.” Let’s never say this—we must refrain from debating the long-term likelihood of gentrification in distressed places.
Investment Without Displacement: From Slogan to Strategy
How investments can be leveraged to ensure residents get to stay in their communities and reap the benefits of new amenities and increased accessibility.
Helping At-Risk Homeowners Stay Put With a Land Trust
For some homeowners at risk of losing their home, City of Lakes Community Land Trust has been able to keep them in place by bringing their home into the land trust.
Community Land Trusts in the Age of Climate Change
With the intensification of weather patterns resulting from climate change, community land trusts perform vital functions that help people recover.
Is the Housing Market the Answer to the Racial Wealth Gap?
In discussions around closing the racial wealth gap, we should be reminded that a very large portion of wealth gained by white Americans should be seen as ill-gotten.
The CLT Solution: In Suburbia and Beyond
After 30 years and the development of thousands of units of affordable housing, the Long Island Housing Partnership Inc. and its affiliates are now concentrating on the Community Land Trust model.