Community Land Trusts: Sustainable housing in insustainable times

A few weeks ago, I posted about shared equity homeownership as a model of sustainable homeownership. This video above provides an overview about community land trusts (CLT), a form of shared equity homeownership that provides permanently affordable ownership. CLTs accomplish this by selling homes on land that they continue to own which significantly reduces the cost of the home. Homeowners then purchase the home and enter into a long-term land lease arrangement with the CLT. I like this video because it shows an actual CLT home and how it is no different visually than other homes in the community.

During this time of great housing insecurity, CLTs offer a path to successful homeownership. A recent study by the National CLT Network and Vanderbuilt University found that conventional homeowners were 8 times more likely than CLT homeowners to be in the process of foreclosure. This gap has widened since 2008, when market-rate homeowners were six times more likely to be in foreclosure than their CLT counterparts. The study cites the following factors in CLT homeowners' success:

• The opportunity to buy homes at an affordable price
• Pre-purchase education and support that prepare families for homeownership
• Ongoing post-purchase stewardship services
  

To read more about the Community Land Trust model, I recommend the following:

Minnesota Community Land Trust Coalition website

A Model for All Markets?- from the 2009 Fall/Winter edition of Shelterforce

Community Land Trusts: An Introduction - from the Summer 1996 Planning Commissioners Journal

Homes that Last - from the  Winter 2008  edition of Shelterforce