Scaling Community-Owned Real Estate for Affordable Housing
About This Investment
Affordable, stable housing helps create the physical, economic, and social conditions a community needs to help its members thrive. Often, when external entities and investors control real estate development, the core needs of residents are sidelined in favor of profit. In contrast, when communities themselves own land through structures like community land trusts (CLTs), residents’ voices can guide housing policy and investment decisions, preventing gentrification and displacement and ensuring that community needs are being met. Despite their effectiveness in preserving long-term affordability for communities with low incomes, CLTs remain underfunded by the mainstream financial and philanthropic sectors.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) seeks to address this funding gap with a $5 million investment to the National Housing Trust Community Development Fund (NHT). In partnership with Grounded Solutions Network (GSN), NHT looks to strengthen CLTs by increasing their capacity for property acquisition, introducing financial management loans for housing operations, and promoting long-term affordable housing development.
Why It Was Needed
Having ownership and control over one’s place of residence contributes significantly to a household’s ability to generate wealth, build financial security, and improve physical and mental wellbeing. When residents have a share in the benefits of neighborhood development efforts, they gain empowerment and a stronger sense of belonging, enhancing community resilience.
However, maintaining long-term affordability is challenging due to the nature of the real estate market. Traditional investors and developers often see housing merely as a financial asset with profitability as the goal, driving up costs. In contrast, community members see home as more than a financial commodity–it is a place where people learn, grow, and build their lives. Community ownership helps put control of housing back into the hands of the people who live in it, supporting price stability and long-term affordability.
How It Works
CLTs are a model of community-driven ownership, in which a nonprofit managed by residents, community members, and mission-aligned partners stewards housing. After acquiring a property, a CLT offers homes for purchase or rent at reduced prices, with the land staying under community ownership. Homeowners can buy properties at reduced rates and typically have long-term, renewable land leases with the CLT. These agreements ensure that if a home is sold, it remains affordable for future residents with low incomes.
About the Borrower
The National Housing Trust Community Development Fund (NHT), a community development financial institution (CDFI) with a 20-year track record. NHT has deployed more than $50 million in loans, preserved more than 13,000 affordable units, and leveraged more than $1 billion in capital by providing quality, affordable loan products in 28 states and the District of Columbia. It uses a holistic approach to underwriting, including technical assistance, that has allowed its portfolio to combat the affordable housing crisis.
Grounded Solutions Network (GSN), formed in 2016 through the merger of the National Community Land Trust Network and Cornerstone Partnership, is the leading national expert on community land trusts and shared-equity ownership models. It has a network of over 200 nonprofit, public, private, and philanthropic members in 40 states.
In the Spotlight
North East Housing Initiative (NEHI), a community land trust formed in 2014 to support permanently affordable housing in northeast Baltimore, received an enterprise loan from NHT in 2023 following a line-of-credit loan in 2022. Since then, NEHI added 20 properties to its portfolio, transforming vacant properties into permanently affordable homes to help build a community that is sustainable, inclusive, and diverse.
“The National Housing Trust’s enterprise loan has been immensely helpful to our liquidity, allowing us to plan further ahead to scale future acquisitions. Being able to respond at market speed allows us to respond at the rate that our community needs us.” —Garrick Good, President/CEO, NEHI
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