Activists Advocate for Community Land Trusts

The Right to the City (RTC), an activist housing justice alliance, has broadened its agenda to include advocating for community land trusts (CLTs) and other permanently affordable housing arrangements. Dana Hawkins-Simons

“We were drawn to CLTs not just as a technical model, but because they provide the opportunity for residents—including renters—to actually have control over their homes and communities,” says Tony Romano, the alliance's organizing director. The RTC identifies with thesocial justice roots of land trusts, and sees how their goals can align with the alliance's anti-gentrification and affordable housing advocacy.

The RTC’s recent report Rise of the Renter Nation (published in partnership with the National Low Income Housing Coalition) includes CLTs as part of the solution to what it calls the “housing affordability crisis.” The report calls for changing national, state, and local housing policy to “support, resource, and prioritize the development of CLTs, limited-equity co-ops, and other cooperative land and housing arrangements.”

The article, by Dana Hawkins-Simons, also includes more detail about the expanding partnership and its early achievements.