Protective Housing and Community Land Trusts
“What is something that you can change to say, you were only letting two people in the door, and now with just a change in language, now we have 15 people in the door?” — Monique Gibbs, Policy Innovation Specialist at MassHousing.
In Season 2 Episode 6 of The Move Podcast, hosts Ceasar McDowell and Ayushi Roy meet with Monique Gibbs, a Policy Innovation Specialist at MassHousing.
MassHousing is a unique public-private entity that was created in 1966 as a reaction to a state-wide problem: the fact that many commercial banks would not lend money to or invest in their communities. To address these mismatched housing needs and commercial lending activity, MassHousing seeks to support affordable housing development and homeownership for low- to moderate income people throughout the state. MassHousing performs the same lending and bonding activity as a bank — yet its quasi-public status holds it accountable to the State of Massachusetts.
As Monique mentions in the podcast, MassHousing is well-positioned to make an impact towards closing the racial wealth and homeownership gaps, resulting from systemic racism, redlining, and housing segregation that have limited investment into communities of color, as well as access to wealth-building through homeownership. Many barriers also still exist to homeownership today, including the racial wealth gap, the rising cost of homes, mortgage lending discrimination, bank branch closures in low-income communities, and a credit score system that leads to racialized economic exclusion.
With an awareness of these inequities, Monique points out that MassHousing mortgages have low interest payments and low down payments, and down payment assistance — and support the development of affordable housing stock. These products offer small steps towards going from “2 people in the door…to 15 people in the door” to stable, safe, affordable housing, and homeownership opportunities.
Yet, in making housing more accessible and affordable, Monique also identifies a crucial tension between housing — including the land it’s built on — a commodity that can be traded at luxury prices, and the fact that housing is a fundamental human need. Housing as an increasingly expensive commodity therefore “doesn’t really work well when you say housing is a human right” that is safe, affordable, and available to all.
To address this tension, communities across the country have built long lasting, community-owned affordable housing through community land trusts, or CLTs.
CLTs are a model for community control of land development, premised on the idea that if land is community-owned, it can be protected from speculation and development that may displace neighbors or produce negative health and safety impacts. Instead, CLTs will create and leverage community assets on its properties, such as shared green spaces, commercial properties, and most importantly, permanently affordable housing.
CLTs allow community members to own their homes, too. Homes are sold at a more affordable price, as a family will only pay for the house, not the land that it sits on. The land still belongs to the CLT, and is given to the homeowner as a 99-year ground lease. Once the owners move out of the house, its resale price may still increase from the original sale price, but is restricted by the CLT in order to preserve affordability for the next generation of owners.
In Massachusetts, Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (DNI) is an active CLT in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. In the 1980s, DNI “establish[ed] community control over a critical mass of the 1,300 parcels of abandoned land” in their neighborhood. Today, this land hosts “225 new affordable homes, a 10,000 square foot community greenhouse, urban farm, a playground, gardens, and other amenities” for the Roxbury community.
Other CLTs across the country have also been active in preserving community land and providing housing for low income residents. OakCLT in Oakland, California provides single family homes, apartments, mixed use spaces, and land for gardening and job training — and has also helped provide financing for tenants to purchase their building to avoid displacement. In Los Angeles, T.R.U.S.T. South LA pairs environmental stewardship and affordable housing in their work as well.
Addressing the disparities in housing access, wealth, and homeownership requires great collaboration across a great trapestry of changemakers. With the grassroots efforts community land trusts, and the public agencies and financial institutions who seek to“build policy from the down up,” working together to protect the right to housing may bring us closer to a more just and equitable democracy.
