One-time Subsidy, Long-term Affordability
Creating affordable housing is one thing. Keeping it affordable for future families is another. Loudoun Habitat is working to build permanent affordability into its homeownership projects with the use of land trusts. The concept of a Community Land Trust (CLT) creates a permanently affordable home by retaining ownership of the land and selling the building only to an income qualified buyer. This lowers the cost of the home to the buyer, resulting in a smaller down payment and lower monthly mortgage expenses. As an affordable alternative to renting, the CLT model allow families to build wealth through their monthly mortgage payments. In exchange for buying the house at a lower price, a CLT homeowner sells the home at a price that is affordable to someone in a similar financial situation.
Community Land Trust, like Habitat for Humanity's Homeownership Program, has origins in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The history of the two models has always been interconnected, and both have been used for decades to provide wealth-building opportunities for households excluded from the traditional housing market. Increasingly, in recent decades, Habitats around the country have been using the CLT model to build long-term affordability. Here in Loudoun County, the CLT is through the Virginia Statewide Community Land Trust - a Habitat established CLT.
Community Land Trusts Are Neighborhood Assets
By creating and stewarding permanently affordable homes, CLTs operate for the benefit of lower income families AND for their neighborhoods.
CLT homes become increasingly affordable compared to market over time. The result is that CLT homes remain affordable in perpetuity, even as the neighborhood changes around them.
