Blog

By Kimberly Sanchez, CHT Executive Director

Two weeks ago, our newly-formed North Carolina Community Land Trust Coalition held its first in-person meeting, an all-day strategic planning retreat facilitated by Armstrong McGuire. The Coalition is a statewide alliance of organizations utilizing the community land trust model with a goal of increasing permanently affordable housing options across our state. Community land trusts are a powerful solution for housing affordability that is permanently protected. This model stabilizes and uplifts low- to moderate-income residents and disenfranchised populations. Grants from the SECU Foundation and Z Smith Reynolds served as the seed funding to launch this new Coalition.

At the planning retreat, representatives of ten of the twelve North Carolina community land trusts were present, including

• Asheville-Buncombe Community Land Trust
• Burlington Community Land Trust
• Cape Fear Community Land Trust
• Community Home Trust
• Durham Community Land Trustees
• Raleigh Area Land Trust
• Southern Pines Land and Housing Trust
• The Industrial Commons
• Watauga Community Housing Trust
• WeBuild Concord

We spent the day working on a shared mission, vision and values as a Coalition. We discussed ways we can work together to educate our communities, scale our impact, increase government and philanthropic support for our organizations, and support each other in providing more affordable housing opportunities for our neighbors.

The members of the Coalition represent a wealth of experience and impact in their communities. Collectively, Coalition members have already

• created 380 affordable homeownership units
• created 271 affordable rental units
• supported households with an average of 63% Area Median Income

Working together, we know that we can amplify our impact and expand our reach, creating new strategies for advocacy, funding, and partnerships to continue to develop the essential permanently affordable housing tool of community land trusts.