Blog

By Daniele Berman, Vice President for Strategy and Operations

June is National Homeownership Month, and to celebrate, our staff and board members joined our friends at Habitat for Humanity of Orange County for a build day last Friday.

As a friend of CHT, you probably know that our community land trust model of homeownership is different from Habitat’s homebuilding model. But the fundamental premise is the same: we work to make homeownership attainable for more people because it is a powerful tool for improving individuals’ and families’ circumstances, increasing housing stability, and developing and growing communities.

At Community Home Trust, we celebrate all these important impacts of homeownership during National Homeownership Month and every month – every time we celebrate a closing with a new homeowner, every time a current homeowner shares how owning their home has helped them improve their circumstances, every time we add a new home to our inventory and work to match one of our program applicants with that home.

Since CHT was founded, we have celebrated these wins with over 600 homeowners! 

Over my five years at CHT, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many of our residents about their homeownership journeys and have had the privilege to share their stories on our blog. And every CHT homeowner I’ve talked to has said some version of these two things: 1) I thought homeownership just wasn’t for me, and 2) CHT’s program seemed too good to be true.

In fact, I think the two things that stand out most about CHT’s shared equity model of homeownership are its emphasis on the value of a home as a place to live above the idea of real estate as an investment, and its ability to open up homeownership to people who can’t afford a home on the private market. Is CLT homeownership a good investment? Yes! In fact, a recent Grounded Solutions Network study reported that the median shared equity household accumulated $14,000 in earned equity, compared to a median initial investment of $1,875, and 60% of those homeowners used the equity they earned to purchase a home on the private market eventually. But the highest value of CLT homeownership is a safe, stable place to call your own home – a place to raise a family, study or work, grow a garden, paint and decorate, gather with friends, celebrate milestones, build community, and save for future investments and expenses.

And that’s what our homeowners share with us. When they talk about their CHT homes, they share about family gatherings, about their kids living close to their schools, about deep friendships with neighbors, and one time even about a favorite cat that brought neighbors together.

And those 600+ homebuyers who have purchased a CHT home over the years? They represent not just themselves but their families, too. In fact, over 1178 people have called CHT homes their own! During National Homeownership Month and every month, we celebrate all those residents of CHT homes over the years – and we’d love to celebrate your story, too.

Are you a current or former CHT homeowner who would like to see your story featured on our blog? Are you a CHT supporter or a housing advocate with a story to share about why CHT means so much to you? Maybe you’re a CHT homeowner who has collected photos you’d like to share of your family’s life in your home. If you have a CHT homeownership story to share, please send me an email to Shannon Massey, our Communications Manager, at smassey@communityhometrust.org. We’d love to celebrate National Homeownership Month with you.

And if you’d like to take a deeper dive into shared equity homeownership and how Community Home Trust’s model works, take a look at our recent whitepaper!