Seeding Trust, Sustaining Equity: Funding and Financing Relationships in the Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network

Abstract

Interest in community land trusts (CLTs) as one tool for stable, affordable housing and local autonomy over urban planning processes is growing rapidly—particularly in the past decade, in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis and the destruction of wealth and housing security that foreclosure waves wreaked across the United States. This increasing energy for community ownership and stewardship of land and housing spans grassroots organizing networks; local, state, and federal government authorities; and philanthropic and conventional capital. Though such a broad base of interest in CLTs at both local and national levels is encouraging, CLT organizers continue to struggle within dominant affordable housing policies and practices to sustain their work. As CLTs and their advocates push to reshape public budgets and capture private capital in innovative ways, how do funders and lenders relate to their own role in ceding control over land and housing—and the financial wealth they generate—in ways that share power with the residents and organizers at the heart of these housing justice movements? Drawing on interviews with housing and community development finance professionals, ongoing conversations with CLT practitioners and advocates, and policy research, this thesis explores the funding and financing ecosystem surrounding the Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network (GBCLTN) as a descriptive case study.