Community land trusts: releasing possible selves through stable affordable housing

Abstract

Housing affordability – a long-standing issue for low-income households – is crucial for the flourishing of both households and communities. When housing is unaffordable, households struggle to attain and maintain housing, which negatively effects household well-being. Since the foreclosure crisis, community land trusts (CLTs) have emerged as a viable housing policy. Relying on quantitative and qualitative data collected by a Minneapolis-based CLT, this study examines the experiences of 91 CLT homeowners. Our analysis illustrates how the CLT’s institutional framework alters the political, economic, social and material relations that characterize the lives of these households to facilitate the provision of previously unavailable resources. Beyond indefinitely stabilizing households, this new arrangement of relations creates a foundation for the cultivation of ontological security and contributes to the opening up of possibilities and the unfolding of life in ways not previously possible.