This section of our website features policy papers, campaign literature, persuasive essays, and popular websites that advocate for wider public funding of community land trusts and wide adoption of community-led development on community-owned land by grassroots advocates and nonprofit organizations.
2021
The Emerging Solidarity Economy: A primer on community ownership of real estate, Tracy Hadden Loh and Hanna Love, Brookings, July 19, 2021
Community Land Trusts: Lay of the Land, a LISC webinar about community land trusts in urban neighborhoods of the US, featuring Jeff Corey (1Roof Community Housing, Duluth MN); Lydia Lowe ( Chinatown CLT, Boston MA); Nora Lichtash (Women's Community Revitalization Project, Philadelphia PA); and Oscar Monge (T.R.U.S.T. South LA, Los Angeles CA). LISC, May 24, 2021. Video, Slide Deck
Termo Territorial Coletivo: Catalytic Communities launches websites in Portuguese and English to build support for the Favela CLT model in Rio de Janeiro and throughout Brazil. May 2021.
Roadmapping a Viable Community Led Housing Sector for Ireland, Self Organized Architecture, May 2021
Put Vacant Lands in Community Hands, a report of the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities, January 2021.
Community Land = Community Resilience: How Community Land Trusts Can Support Affordable Housing and Climate Initiatives. Jessica Grannis, Georgetown Climate Center, Georgetown Law, January 2021. Abstract: Cities across the United States and the world are grappling with the compounding threats posed by climate change, lack of affordable housing, and racial and economic inequality. Climate change will amplify risks from natural disasters. And communities that see significant impacts to housing experience a much slower recovery, particularly for lower-income residents and renters, who are often disproportionately affected by disasters and sometimes never fully recover.
2020
Increasing Community Power and Health Through Community Land Trusts. A report from five movement-driven California CLTs, December 2020
Urban Community Land Trust in Europe: Towards a Transnational Movement. A report from SHICC and FMDV, October 2020. English, French, Flemish, German
The Most We Can Do: A National Mandate for Housing Justice, Tony Pickett and Robert Burns, Shelterforce, August 6, 2020
MIT Community Innovations Lab: A Guide to Transformative Land Strategies,June 2020. Abstract: The report synthesizes the practices and strategies of transformative community land organizations under three primary themes: participatory comprehensive planning, partnerships across grassroots and mainstream organizations, and community and cooperative financing. These findings are relevant for activists, practitioners, planners, policymakers, and educators - and the many working between these roles - who are invested in the transformative potential of the CLTs and other community land ownership models. June 2020.
How Community Land Trusts Can Advance Racial and Economic Justice, Gabriella Velasco, Housing Matters, February 26, 2020 (English)
The Advance of the International Community Land Trust Movement, Line Algoed and Geert De Pauw, AGORA Magazine, January 2020 (Dutch). Abstract: While house prices are rising worldwide, community land trusts are succeeding in making affordable living possible. Common land ownership, anti-speculative conditions, and collective management are essential ingredients for this. This article looks at the emergence of the international movement of CLTs, with specific attention to the CLTs of Brussels and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Proceeding from these examples, the article investigates what the role that CLTs can play in Belgium and the Netherlands and what role they can play in the context of informal neighborhoods in the Global South.
2019
Community Land Trusts and Community Development: Partners Against Displacement, David Greenberg, LISC, February 2019. Abstract: This policy brief asks how partnerships between CLTs and community development institutions can scale up and sustain land trusts so as to begin to impact displacement at the neighborhood level. These goals of scale and sustainability are intertwined. Achieving scale means identifying new pipelines and resources to secure land and properties, and to rehabilitate them as needed. Making sure these larger land trusts are sustainable means ensuring that new properties’ financing and governance will allow for permanent affordability.