The International Center for Community Land Trusts
Advancing community-owned land as a platform for housing, climate resilience, food security, and thriving communities
The CLT Center was established in 2018 to support and strengthen the growing global movement of community land trusts (CLTs) and related forms of community-led development on community-owned land. We work alongside local organizations, national networks, researchers, policymakers and community leaders to help CLTs take root in new places and deepen their impact where they already exist.
New to community land trusts? Start with What Is a CLT?
Why the CLT Center
The challenge
Across the world, communities face growing pressure from rising housing costs, land speculation, displacement and climate change. The question is increasingly the same: how can communities retain long-term control over the places they call home? Traditional approaches often tackle one problem at a time — housing, conservation, agriculture, climate — without addressing the foundation they share: secure, community-controlled land.
A different vision
CLTs have supported affordable homes, farms, green spaces, community facilities, local businesses and cultural spaces across diverse legal, cultural and geographic contexts. The CLT Center exists to help communities, practitioners, policymakers and partners adapt these approaches to their own contexts.
Why now
Interest in collective land stewardship is growing. Communities, governments, researchers and international organizations increasingly recognize that lasting solutions to housing affordability, climate resilience, food security and land justice require keeping land under community stewardship. The opportunity is no longer whether CLTs can work in diverse contexts. It is how quickly we can help communities adopt them.
How we work
Everything we do falls within three complementary workstreams.
Education
Building accessible knowledge through research, publications, policy guidance, case studies and multilingual learning resources.
Connection
Strengthening the global CLT movement by connecting practitioners, governments, researchers, funders and community leaders.
Innovation
Supporting the adaptation of CLTs to new contexts and emerging challenges through collaborative learning and targeted technical assistance.
Our areas of focus
Three interconnected pillars where CLTs create demonstrable impact across diverse global contexts, and around which the CLT Center organizes its research, partnerships and programs.
Healthy, affordable and secure housing
Helping communities secure land, prevent displacement, preserve affordability and strengthen long-term housing stability through:
- Community-led housing
- Informal settlement upgrading
- Cooperative housing
- Aging in place
- Housing justice
- Secure tenure
Food security and land access
Protecting land for farming, local food systems, and resilient rural and urban agriculture through:
- Community agriculture
- Urban farming
- Agricultural land protection
- Long-term land access
- Rural stewardship
Climate and environmental stewardship
Supporting community-led approaches to climate resilience, conservation, disaster recovery and environmental justice through:
- Climate adaptation
- Disaster resilience
- Indigenous stewardship
- Land restoration
- Community conservation
- Climate-related displacement prevention
What we bring
- More than four decades of global CLT experience
- The world’s largest international CLT knowledge network
- Deep relationships with practitioners and grassroots organizations
- International policy leadership
- Practical technical assistance
- Global peer learning
- Strategic partnerships with governments, multilateral organizations, universities and civil society
Our role is to help build the enabling conditions for community ownership to flourish.
Our programs
Global South CLT Initiative
Supporting communities across Latin America, Africa and Asia in exploring, adapting and implementing collective land stewardship models through peer learning, technical assistance and locally rooted partnership, with the goal of development without displacement, on communities’ own terms.
Global CLT Virtual Summit and World CLT Day
Connecting practitioners, residents, organizers, researchers and allies worldwide through a free, multi-week series of online events culminating in a coordinated global day of action celebrating community-led land and housing.
Terra Nostra Press
A multilingual imprint publishing books, monographs and manuals that showcase the theory and practice of CLTs and the stories of practitioners building an international CLT movement.
Climate Justice Initiative
Documenting, connecting and amplifying the climate work already happening in CLTs worldwide, to position CLTs as essential, justice-centered actors in the global transition to a resilient and equitable future.
Learn more about the CLT Center
Mission & Strategy
Our vision, mission and overarching strategy.
Our History
How the CLT Center and the international CLT movement evolved.
Board and Staff
The people leading the work of the CLT Center.
Document Library
Our financial, legal and planning documents.
Support Our Work
Help us keep our resources and events free and open to all.
Contact Us
Questions, ideas or partnership inquiries.
Join us
Together we can help communities secure land rights, prevent displacement, build climate resilience, preserve affordability and strengthen democratic local governance.