Keeping "Community" in a Community Land Trust

This instrumental case study examined the role of grassroots community organizing in a community land trust (CLT) in a southern U.S. city. Twenty-nine homeowners, renters, board members, community members, and current and former CLT employees were interviewed. In addition, two focus groups of 11 and six participants composed of CLT residents and other neighborhood residents were conducted. All comments were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using NVivo software. Analysis revealed that community organizing was helpful if not necessary for community building in the subject CLT. This study enhances our knowledge of CLTs and the ways they contribute to community change and offers lessons learned to other, especially budding, CLTs. KEY WORDS: affordable housing; community land trusts; community organizing ********** The primary focus of community land trusts (CLTs) is affordable housing for individuals and communities. In the "classic" CLT model, a low-income individual or family becomes a member of the CLT, buys a house in the CLT, and leases the land on which the house sits from the CLT. A primary concern of the CLT is ownership for the common good rather than what is best for individuals (Krinsky & Hovde, 1996). Thus, CLTs offer a unique form of community development. Although the primary focus of CLTs is affordable housing, it is important to understand that they are also meant to meet other core principles outlined by the National Community Land Trust network, including "to increase long-term community control of neighborhood resources [and] to empower residents through involvement and participation in the organization" (National Community Land Trust Network, n.d., para. 2). An article-length overview of CLTs is available (Gray, 2008), as is a book-length document (Davis, 2006) for readers who wish to learn more about CLTs. There have been very few empirical studies of CLTs, and there is even less in the literature on the role of community organizing in CLTs. The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative used community organizing quite effectively to build its organization and empower its residents; most notably, the city of Boston granted them the authority of eminent domain, and they remain the only nonprofit in the country to hold this power (Medoff & Sklar, 1994). Other research on CLTs has not specifically discussed community organizing (Angotti, 2007; Davis & Demetrowitz, 2003; Davis & Stokes, 2009; Krinsky & Hovde, 1996; Packnett, 2005). A 2007 survey of CLTs asked one question regarding community organizing, framed as "anti-crime organizing" (Sungu-Eryilmaz & Greenstein, 2007). Three of 120 CLTs reported anti-crime organizing as a major component of their program activities, and 23 reported it was a minor component. Also examined was the involvement of the CLT in "policy advocacy," which was not defined (and policy advocacy may or may not involve community organizing). More CLTs than not were involved in policy advocacy: 23 reported it as a major component, and 58 reported it as a minor one. There are nonempirical accounts of CLTs using community organizing. For example, the Sawmill CLT in Albuquerque, New Mexico, formed out of a long history of community organizing against nearby factory pollution (Davis, 2006). Although community organizing is not the only means to achieve the core principles of long-term community control and empowerment of residents that the National Community Land Trust Network endorses, it is certainly a proven model for doing so. Community organizing has a long, solid history of teaching people how to gain power to achieve the changes they want and need (Rubin & Rubin, 2008). Community organizing builds leaders and relationships, empowers individuals, and creates organizations that act for social change (Bobo, Kendall, & Max, 1991; Kahn, 1991; Rubin & Rubin, 2008). "In the United States community development stands in stark contrast to community organizing" (Stoecker, 2003, p. …