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• How are CLT homes and other projects paid for?
• How do CLTs pay for their day-to-day work?
• What role do cities and other governments play?

How are CLT homes and other projects paid for?

Mostly with a combination of public and private money, assembled project by project. A CLT has to buy or receive land and build or repair homes, then sell or rent them at prices lower-income households can afford. The gap between what a project costs and what residents can pay is usually filled by grants or low-cost loans.

In the United States, that money often comes from city and state housing programs, including federal funds that pass through local governments; from donated or discounted public land; from requirements that private developers include affordable homes; and from banks, foundations, faith communities and individual donors. Other countries have their own sources. In England, for example, many CLTs raise money by selling community shares to local residents. Because a CLT keeps that subsidy in the home when it is resold, the same investment serves one household after another (see “Do CLT homes stay affordable when they are resold?”).

Because a CLT keeps its subsidy in the home at resale, funders get far more from each dollar. At the Champlain Housing Trust, about $2.2 million in public money helped 357 households buy homes over 20 years; one-time grants that left with each seller would have cost five times as much. John Emmeus Davis’s guide to starting a CLT describes the most common sources of project funding and the issues each raises.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis, Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices (Burlington Associates, 2007).
• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024). See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis and Alice Stokes, Lands in Trust, Homes That Last: A Performance Evaluation of the Champlain Housing Trust (Champlain Housing Trust, 2009).
• John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed and María E. Hernández-Torrales, eds., The Growth of Community Land Trusts in England and Europe (Terra Nostra Press, 2021).

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How do CLTs pay for their day-to-day work?

A CLT’s work does not end when a home is sold. It screens and educates buyers, manages resales, helps owners keep up their homes and intervenes if they fall behind on the mortgage. This ongoing “stewardship” costs money, and it is one of the hardest things for a CLT to pay for, because most public funding is for building, not for operations.

Most CLTs piece together several sources: monthly ground lease fees, developer fees earned on new projects, fees charged when homes are resold, rents, member dues, and grants and donations. In a Lincoln Institute survey of more than 100 U.S. CLTs, nearly all relied on several of these at once. A CLT with more land and homes can cover more of its own costs. Smaller and newer CLTs usually depend on grants, and on support from local governments that see stewardship as a way to protect their investment.

As CLTs age, more of them set aside part of their lease fees or resale fees for major repairs to the homes in their care, in building-by-building reserves or a pooled stewardship fund. Larger CLTs can cover more of their own costs; smaller and newer ones usually need grants and the support of local governments that see stewardship as a way to protect their investment.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024). See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis, Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices (Burlington Associates, 2007).
• Grounded Solutions Network, “Understanding the Financial Health of Community Land Trusts in the United States” (article). See groundedsolutions.org.

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What role do cities and other governments play?

A large one. Many CLTs were started or supported by local governments that wanted affordable homes to stay affordable, starting with Burlington, Vermont, in 1984. Cities give CLTs land, funding and staff support, and often fair property tax treatment. Some national governments, such as France and Scotland, have passed laws that recognize and support CLTs.

The Lincoln Institute report Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (2024) and its companion volume of international commentaries describe how these partnerships work. Both are listed under Joint Publications.

Burlington’s city council put up $200,000 in 1984 to start what became the Champlain Housing Trust, with city staff leading the planning. Since then, many U.S. cities have created or supported CLTs, and in 2024 the Lincoln Institute published a guide to these municipal partnerships, with a companion volume of commentaries from other countries. Outside the United States, England and Wales defined CLTs in law in 2008, France created its organismes de foncier solidaire, and Puerto Rico created the Caño Martín Peña CLT by statute in 2004.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024). See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis, ed., International Commentaries on Preserving Affordable Homeownership (International Center for Community Land Trusts, 2025). See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed and María E. Hernández-Torrales, eds., The Growth of Community Land Trusts in England and Europe (Terra Nostra Press, 2021).
• CLT Center, Community land trusts in Puerto Rico.

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