What is a community land trust?

Our community land trust is a nonprofit organization that holds land in trust to benefit families who live on the land as well as the community as a whole. Community land trusts now exist in more than one hundred communities and 31 states. They are an effective way to:

• invest in the community
• improve neighborhoods, and
• ensure that people who currently reside in a community can continue to afford to live there.

How does it work?

After acquiring property, BRH constructs a new or fully renovated home. The home is then sold, at a reduced cost to a buyer. The buyer owns the home while, through use of a ground lease, Bread & Roses Housing continues to own the land. The ground lease protects both public investment in the trust as well as private investment, and maintains affordability for renewable 99 year periods.

Buyers must reside in the home. Should they move, they receive a limited share of equity and reimbursement for capital improvements. The home then becomes available to another low income homebuyer at an affordable price. This means that the home remains affordable. It is affordable, not in the sense of the fair market value of the property, but affordable in the sense of the true income of a working family -- what they can really pay for housing needs.