Community Ownership Models

Community ownership and stewardship have been around for millennia. For many indigenous cultures, land cannot be owned, especially by individuals. Instead, the community together acts as the steward of the land collectively. Private property ownership too has been around for ages. However, in the U.S., a combination of forces (racist housing and urban renewal policies, financialization of real estate, and financial deregulation) made property ownership out of reach for many BIPOC communities while outside investors have outsized say on their communities. Community ownership and stewardship is a way to instate community self-determination and stability while retaining and reinvesting the benefits generated by the real estate and land.

The definition of “community” in community ownership and stewardship depends on the context and the model. It can be a small group of limited equity housing co-op residents or impact investors of a community investment fund across the state. What’s in common is that the “community” is the group that has the agency and control over the democratized resources (of land and properties).

The core of community ownership and stewardship is about reverting and redefining the purpose and the beneficiaries of property ownership and stewardship. Under the community-based models, ownership is not a profit-maximizing investment instrument nor a weapon for displacement but is stewarded as a means to meet housing needs or a pathway to create critical spaces for the community that foster community economic vitality and political agency.

Community ownership and stewardship projects are happening everywhere in the US and beyond! Many examples we come across are from disinvested neighborhoods and serving, in some cases led by, groups that have been excluded from property ownership by design.

The time is now. Decades of policies and institutional practices have brought us to a point where real estate and land use conspire against the community. Reversing this trend will too require long-term effort. Nevertheless, the pervasive warning signs within our system are impossible to ignore, and the movement is gaining momentum!

Visionaries, practitioners, and communities are piloting and refining various community ownership and stewardship models—some emerged from the civil rights movement, others brand new—to take back community control of the buildings, homes, and neighborhoods and rebuild and strengthen the physical connective tissues of the community.