Reports
By John Emmeus Davis, National Housing Institute
Shared equity homeownership ensures that the homes remain affordable to lower income households on a long-term basis by restricting the appreciation that the owner can retain, preserving affordable housing in areas where rising prices are forcing lower income households out of the market. At the same time, by placing the owner within a community-based support system, such as a community land trust or limited equity cooperative, shared equity homeownership can mitigate the risks of homeownership, potentially increasing the benefits of homeownership both for the owner and the neighborhood in which she lives.
In the following pages, John Emmeus Davis provides a detailed description of the principal shared equity homeownership models, and the policy and design issues they raise. He addresses the principal claims made for shared equity homeownership as a vehicle for promoting individual wealth, stability and engagement, as well as for building wealth and stability at the community level. Davis also examines the criticisms that have been raised. While recognizing that many issues remain unresolved, Davis clearly establishes the value of shared equity homeownership as a means of providing and maintaining affordable housing and strong neighborhoods.
By John Emmeus Davis and Rick Jacobus, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
While community land trusts (CLTs) have existed since the 1980s, their numbers started to increase rapidly over the last 10 years as local governments contributed their support. Among other accomplishments, these public–private partnerships have helped to expand the nation’s stock of permanently affordable homeownership housing. This report is intended to provide guidance to local officials about the most effective ways to invest in CLT startups, projects, and operations to achieve this end.
By John Emmeus Davis and Alice Stokes, Champlain Housing Trust
The homeownership program described and evaluated in this study began 25 years ago in a small city with a big idea. The big idea was that affordable housing was a community asset too valuable to be left to the shifting winds of the speculative market. The city was Burlington, Vermont and the vehicle they chose to fulfill that vision was the community land trust.
We have known for many years that Champlain Housing Trust’s homebuyers were improving their housing and their financial situation even as they contributed, by sharing their equity with the next buyer, to lasting housing affordability in our region. We have been eager to share that knowledge with others, especially at a time that cries out for better housing policy. We hope this study will contribute to a much needed national dialogue on forward-looking, choice-enhancing housing solutions and encourage other communities to invest in permanently affordable housing solutions like the community land trust.
By John Emmeus Davis, Habitat for Humanity/Grounded Solutions Network
For its 2017 Shelter Report, Habitat for Humanity enlisted the support of the Grounded Solutions Network and hired John Davis to make the case for permanently affordable housing. The result is a lavishly illustrated 92-page publication that reviews the many ways in which conventional homeownership is vulnerable to loss, introduces the models and mechanisms of shared equity homeownership, and documents that stewardship works.
By David Greenberg, LISC
This policy brief asks how partnerships between CLTs and community development institutions can scale up and sustain land trusts so as to begin to impact displacement at the neighborhood level. These goals of scale and sustainability are intertwined. Achieving scale means identifying new pipelines and resources to secure land and properties, and to rehabilitate them as needed. Making sure these larger land trusts are sustainable means ensuring that new properties’ financing and governance will allow for permanent affordability.
Many authors contributed to this report, Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities
Since the 2000s, a continuous deterioration of housing prices has been observed in Europe, especially in dense urban centres. In some places housing prices have increased by 30 to 50% over the
past decade.
Because this crisis strikes at the roots of economic and spatial inequalities, it threatens the social cohesion
of our cities. For the most fragile households, it can lead to degradation in living conditions, in economic
opportunities and ultimately in freedom. The situation can be explained by structural
changes in the housing market. In particular, the housing sector has been subjected to financialisation, through which financial markets play a growing role in transforming housing into profitable commodities at the expense of its social purpose.
Community Land Trusts (CLT) is determined to work for a change in the paradigm of the unquestionability
of individual land and property ownership. Indeed, the CLT model, inspired by the US Civil
Rights Movement of the 1960s, advocates for a change in the established property rights systems
and for collective owner-ship of land.
By Jarrid Green with Thomas Hanna, Democracy Collaborative
As communities and policymakers alike consider ways to address the urgent need for community and economic development, there is an emerging opportunity to develop strategies related to land and housing that can help create inclusive, participatory, and sustainable economies built on locally-rooted, broad-based ownership of place-based assets. This report provides an overview of strategies and tools that, as a group, represent an innovative and potentially powerful new approach to establish community control of land and housing.