About

The history of community ownership of land in the United States started with indigenous land stewardship practices.

The first treaty signed between a Native American Tribe, the Lenape, and the US government which was broken within weeks like countless others that followed, resulted in loss of land, disruptions to tribal culture, economy, and social structure, and set the legal precedents that continue to impact indigenous people today.

Westward Expansion, Marshall Trilogy, and Manifest Destiny, which held that white Americans had the right, even the duty, to extend their civilization fueled the removal and genocide of Indigenous people, the expansion of enslavement, and the explicit restriction to only white people the ownership of land.

The National Housing Act created the practice of Redlining. Minority, particularly Black, neighborhoods, were deemed financially risky and unable to acquire favorable mortgages and loans denying them the pathway to home and property ownership.

Veterans of Color excluded from the G.I. Bill benefits, including subsidies for employment, home loans, and college education.

The Housing Act of 1949 kicked started urban renewal projects that disproportionately displaced low-income and minority, especially Black, communities in urban cores. It also enabled mass production of housing which by and large created homogeneous middle-class white suburbs.

National Interstate and Defense Highways Act: Highway construction accelerating White flight was a common weapon used to slice through and displace minority communities during this time and in doing so devalued the properties nearby.

The Fair Housing Act attempted to curb racist housing practices in sale and rent, but another ten years would pass, after the Equal Credit Opportunity act (1974) and Community Reinvestment Act (1977), before racist mortgage lending and redlining were legally prohibited. Fifty years later, many metropolitan areas remain just as segregated as they were in 1968.

New Communities Inc., the precursor of Community Land Trust (CLT), was established in Lee County, Georgia. Today, there are more than 300 CLTs in the country holding over 40,000 housing units.

Numerous acts in favor of financial deregulation led to shadow banking, speculation, and risky lending practices for the benefit of investors and shareholders. The same period also saw the start of systemic financialization of real estate with securitization and expansion of real estate investment trusts.

The HOME Program was created by the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990. It provides formula grants to states and localities that partner with local nonprofits to preserve and create affordable housing for rent or homeownership and to provide direct assistance to low-income residents. This was a turning point for the federal government in moving away from the public housing model to a private/public partnership model.

Unchecked real estate and housing financialization (like mortgage-backed securities) and subprime lending led to the financial crisis; $17 trillion ($22 trillion in 2023 dollars) of wealth was lost and 8 million homes were foreclosed.

Communities stewarded and owned land and properties in service of everyone, especially the most vulnerable, that support the community spatially, socially, economically, and culturally