Could Community Land Trusts Provide a Model for Solving Massachusetts' Housing Crisis?

Residents squeezed by Massachusetts’ unforgiving housing market look to community land trusts for relief.

Ellie Bloom

Somerville housing is expensive and in short supply. Over a third of Somerville households spend more than 30% of their income on rent or mortgage payments, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development defines as “housing cost burdened,” according to a Somerville Housing Needs Assessment. 

This lack of affordability is part of a larger housing crisis across Massachusetts. The state has a housing deficit of 108,000 units and that number is projected to increase.

Massachusetts communities are clamoring to find solutions to the rising demand for affordable housing as these options are disappearing statewide. 

One answer, the community land trust (CLT), is increasing in popularity across the state. CLTs build wealth by sharing land ownership among community members. Somerville formally established a community land trust in 2018 in an attempt to combat the growing housing deficit. 

Could community land trusts provide a statewide model for Massachusetts to address the housing crisis on a large scale?

Pooling purchasing power 

CLTs are unique because they allow residents to purchase homes, but not the land beneath, which is just one of many ways that they make home ownership more affordable. Through government and nonprofit grants, as well as private fundraising, CLTs buy the land on which the housing is built; the actual homes on CLT land are then sold to low- and moderate-income residents who enter into low-cost, long-term property leases.

Unlike government-run public housing, which doesn't give residents an opportunity to invest in property and build wealth, CLTs boast a democratic power structure designed to be accountable to the people they serve. 

Decisions about the upkeep of the land and property are made by a board, one-third of which comprises CLT residents, one-third of whom are community members, and the last third made up of housing professionals and community leaders.

CLT residents can’t sublet their homes, but they can pass their property lease and home ownership to their children, promoting generational wealth building within families. When a CLT home is sold (below market value to preserve affordability), the seller makes a minimal profit. 

Some critics say that because families don't receive full equity, the CLT model can contribute to generational racial wealth gaps. But Dr. Laurie Goldman, Professor of Urban Planning at Tufts University, points out that these families wouldn't otherwise be homeowners, so the small return they get is better than the zero return that would come from renting. “They're still getting that equity that's giving them a leg up,” she says. 

Another advantage to CLTs: Residents’ annual housing costs are fixed; they are not at the mercy of landlords who can hike up rent prices.

But raising enough money to buy land in Massachusetts remains CLTs’ biggest hurdle. At a recent event, Ward 3 Somerville City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen described the combination of factors that must come into perfect alignment in order for the CLT to acquire land, specifically the funding and organizational capacity of the CLT. “The Land Trust would not have happened without the city extremely wanting to make this happen,” he said.

Housing desperation rises

Massachusetts needs less expensive housing solutions, and CLTs could be a fix, if they got more community and government support. In September 2022, Somerville homes sold for a median price of $950,000 according to Redfin; median condominium prices rose by 25% over the prior year, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. The price of a one-bedroom has increased 29% since 2021, according to the Somerville Community Land Trust. 

More than one-third of Somerville households are currently considered “housing cost-burdened” according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development standards.

Upward pressure on home prices comes from students who can afford higher rents; the influx of high-income families; and increasing public transit access with the Green Line Expansion (GLX), which adds stress to the housing market as commuters gain better access to high paying jobs in Boston. Ewen-Campen says GLX has “been like putting lighter fluid on a smoldering fire,” of the T’s impact on housing prices. An MBTA study confirmed that the expansion will help mostly wealthier white residents due to Somerville's shifting demographics as rents increase along the Green Line corridor.

“Many of our families simply cannot afford, and will not be able to afford, even within a six-month or one- or two-year period of time, the current market rents,” says Ellen Shachter, Director of Somerville’s Office of Housing Stability.

“Essentially everybody in Somerville is vulnerable to displacement if you're not extremely affluent,” says Goldman. “It's hard to get people to recognize their own vulnerability when their housing is stable.” People are so desperate to stay in Somerville, she says, that “they’re saying ‘we’re going to stay here by the skin of our teeth’.”

Solutions at scale

Could the CLT model provide a housing pathway for at-risk populations? Josh McLinden, a graduate student of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University who is writing a thesis on CLTs, argues that the CLT movement could scale up if the funding was available, and that could be beneficial.

Scaling up would reduce duplication of overhead costs that burden many small organizations, says Meredith Levy, director at Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust (BNCLT). Streamlining resources would free up funds for property acquisitions or other community benefits. 

But there are downsides to large nonprofit operations. Levy cautions that “part of the value of the [small CLT] model is being able to build a community of leaders who feel very engaged and I think once you hit a certain scale it gets harder and harder to do that because it's more about transactions.”

After witnessing the explosion of Community Development Corporations (CDCs) that emerged from the civil rights movement in the 1960s, many people share Levy’s concerns. Over the years, CDCs professionalized and lost touch with their community organizing roots. The pressure to continue to come up with funds to pay CDC employees shifted the focus away from community organizing and building housing toward supporting the organization itself. 

“But that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do [CLTs],” Levy went on to say. “You just have to do it mindfully and carefully.” 

Expansion strategy through government

Some people argue that government-run CLTs would be able to secure funding more easily than private CLTs. “The real contribution of government to the growth of CLTs is bringing equity to the deal,” says John Emmeus Davis, who has worked on CLTs for over forty years and currently serves as President on the Board of Directors for the Center for Community Land Trust Innovation, says 

The government can provide this equity through funding for CLT land acquisitions, Davis says, through grants and low-interest loans for developing and funding projects, as well as financial support for CLT operating costs. 

Another way that the government could bring equity to the deal is through land. “City and county governments can aid the development of CLTs by moving publicly owned land and buildings into the land trust portfolio,” Davis says, “or using the regulatory power of municipalities for things like inclusionary zoning, density bonuses, and parking waivers.”

Tony Herandez, a former CLT employee at Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and a current employee of Grounded Solutions Network, a nonprofit organization of CLTs that advocates for housing policy, agrees that state regulations should play a larger role in supporting organizations through both ​​funding and policy. Hernandez suggested that the state could “carve out a percentage of dollars or available land and protect it, giving the priority to nonprofit organizations like community land trusts to develop those sites.”

Additionally, says Hernandez, local jurisdictions can assist CLTs by revising their tax assessment practices to ensure fair treatment of resale-restricted homes built on their lands and providing subsidy dollars to help with down payment assistance. The government can also incentivize banks to offer mortgages with favorable interest rates to low-moderate-income families looking to buy CLT homes. 

Davis says the main way to combat the housing crisis is by investing dollars that will stay in affordable housing long term. “So many of our public programs for affordable housing and community development allow the public investment to be pocketed and walk away within five years,” Davis says. “The dollars and the homes leak out the bottom of the bucket as fast as we pour more dollars and more homes into the top.”

That’s why CLTs could be the answer, Davis says. Contrary to Section 8 vouchers and other types of government spending on housing subsidies, investment in CLTs preserves affordability, so the dollars invested continue to benefit the community as the cost of housing cannot revert to market rates. 

Massachusetts boasts many CLT success stories, including the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust (BNCLT), which suggests the potential for scaling up.

CLT residents agree that this model provides stability and a sense of security. One BNCLT homeowner said she is no longer afraid of being evicted or displaced due to rising housing costs: “[The CLT] has really helped me be able to do things I want to do… having the security of not feeling like you would be evicted at any time. I wasn’t held back from fear of not having enough money for rent or utilities.”

Another BNCLT resident shared: “I didn't realize how living circumstances change your being so much, that it gives you that piece of mind, that you start to think of things that you probably weren’t able to or couldn’t afford to before.”