Struggles for land and the promise of the Community land trust

Community organizers everywhere are hearing about an approach to housing that has been largely absent from public debates on housing policy – the community land trust (CLT). A CLT is a non-profit community-based organization that owns land; the title requires that the land be leased only for low-cost housing and that it remain affordable indefinitely. Thousands of households throughout the United States – there is no exact tally -- live in homes that are part of a CLT. CLTs have been proposed as an instrument to protect neighborhoods facing gentrification and displacement and to empower communities that have historically lacked power. After the 2008 collapse of the housing bubble, the CLT was proposed as an antidote to widespread foreclosures, predatory lending, and the growing proportion of households paying more than 30% of their incomes for housing. Housing activists have proposed that vacant land and buildings be placed in land trusts instead of being put back in the speculative land market. A community land trust is dedicated to the creation and preservation of low-income (or “affordable”) housing in perpetuity. The trust is the legal owner of land and leases it for exclusive use in accordance with the terms of the trust. The lessee is typically a non-profit housing corporation, closely related to the CLT, that rents to qualified tenants, or an individual owner whose ability to profit from equity gains is severely limited. The trust is usually run by a board dominated by housing advocates, community leaders and public officials – people who do not normally have a stake in housing as a commodity in the market.2 In this essay I make three major points: 1. CLTs are potentially an alternative to the displacement and inequalities of private housing and land markets. But land trusts in general have been used to protect elites and by themselves are not necessarily good or bad. 2. The CLT is only one among many tools for achieving the right to housing and the right to the city. Many more things are needed to keep land out of the market and make housing permanently affordable. 3. CLTs in the United States emerge out of struggles against displacement and the peace and civil rights movements. Sustaining organic ties with these and other movements is necessary if they are to achieve their revolutionary and transformative potential.