
By James Yelen and Jerusha Daniels
There is no silver bullet to fix our country’s housing affordability challenges, so we must leverage every tool in the toolbox to address the chronic undersupply of affordable homes and steadily rising prices. A critical part of the solution can be found everywhere from the largest cities to the smallest towns, in both urban and rural communities, lying right beneath our feet: land that is owned by local public entities. At Grounded Solutions Network, our staff and members know the deep importance that land stewardship plays in creating housing with lasting affordability. Initiatives such as our Catalytic Land Cohort in 2019 specifically focused on unlocking the value of publicly-owned land to serve Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) households with housing that remains affordable for generations. We and our community-based partners have continued to build on that work ever since, developing new tools, supporting partnerships between shared equity practitioners and land-holding public agencies, and launching new learning cohorts and training initiatives. Our recently-held Land for Lasting Affordable Housing summit in Chicago marks an important milestone in our journey.
On September 11, 2024, at the iconic Drake Hotel, Grounded Solutions Network convened more than 70 Chicago-area Community Land Trusts (CLTs), shared equity housing practitioners, affordable housing advocates, state and city policymakers, planners, and public land-holding jurisdictions for a day of learning with national peers. The event coincided with the conclusion of our Chicago Scholars series, which supported a small group of local CLTs with curated trainings, one-on-one coaching, and grant funding to help develop portfolio growth strategies.
The day began with highlights from Atlanta and Houston about the innovative ways they leverage public land to expand housing with lasting affordability in their regions. Representatives from Metro Atlanta Land Bank shared the organization’s journey of creating its Long-term Housing Affordability Disposition Policy, which evolved from the success of a pilot program in direct partnership with Atlanta Land Trust. Representatives from Houston Community Land Trust later discussed their work with the Houston Land Bank Authority on home designs that allow higher density infill and activate odd-sized lots, helping to create a new development pipeline of affordable homes within a historically underutilized part of the Land Bank’s inventory. We capped the morning off with the introduction of the Sample Land Bank Long-Term Housing Affordability Disposition Policy, a resource for Land Banks, public land-holding jurisdictions, and their CLT partners that was developed by the Center for Community Progress in partnership with Grounded Solutions Network.
Chicago housers spent the afternoon engaging with their local and national peers, drawing from the morning’s inspiration to discuss how they can tap the current momentum supporting housing with lasting affordability in Chicago and increase access in their communities. These breakout group conversations underscored several key themes that came up in the morning’s presentations:
- Strategic partnerships are critical, and they take time. Whether it’s securing dedicated funding, creating equitable disposition policies, or updating existing program guidelines to better align with lasting affordability goals, presenters and attendees both emphasized the importance of building and maintaining strong partnerships and creating collective solutions. This requires dedicating time to shared education, clearly defining roles and responsibilities, and leveraging the strengths and resources of the stakeholders at the table. We all have enough meetings on our plate already, so getting busy organization and public agency leaders to commit the necessary time can be a hard sell. But the stories of both successes and failures made it clear that this upfront investment in process and relationship building pays off when done right.
- Embrace innovation and build on what is proven. There’s a clear need for innovative policies and programs that can withstand unpredictable market changes and meet highly diverse and evolving community needs. Models and approaches like multi-family housing cooperatives and homeowner stabilization initiatives were cited as critical tools for getting to scale, operating in high-cost urban markets, and serving long-time residents at risk of displacement. At the same time, securing early wins and demonstrating success using existing resources is often necessary to build buy-in for shared equity and lasting affordable housing models. Working within programs that are already funded or incorporating elements of lasting affordability into existing development pipelines can help prove the concept, making it easier to secure more resources in the future and start to push into more innovative practices.
- Listening to and amplifying stories can drive needed policy change. From inequitable taxation to incompatible program guidelines, policies and regulations across every level of government can present significant barriers to shared equity and lasting affordable housing models. Changing policy often requires our field to change the narrative, and that means building coalitions and task forces to represent CLT interests; leveraging community stories, research, and partnerships to drive political will; advocating for state-level support, such as down payment assistance and housing trust funds; and emphasizing the social impact of CLTs in disinvested communities.
Chicago is at a critical juncture on its path to expanding shared equity and housing with lasting affordability; initiatives such as the $15 million Community Wealth Building pilot, $3.5 million Shared Equity Investment Program, and a commitment of $625 million in bond proceeds over the next five years are geared towards a wide array of housing development and affordability models. At the same time, nationally, we have seen a growing call from advocates and policymakers in localities like, Miami, Boston, and Montgomery County, MD, for public agencies to dedicate their land holdings to community-serving purposes like affordable housing, often under the banner of “Public Land for Public Good.” While federal support in the form of block grants, regulatory changes, and incentives has a critical role to play, decisions over land use, including the use and sale of publicly-owned land, largely happen at the local level. Stories from our September convening illustrate what can happen when landholding jurisdictions and lasting affordable housing practitioners get behind a common agenda, and Grounded Solutions Network prides itself on creating the space for these kinds of national peer exchanges to take place and cultivate inspiration. We invite all those who are committed to our mission to join the network and help create communities that are equitable, inclusive, and rich in opportunity — for generations to come.
James Yelen is Grounded Solutions Network’s Director of Technical Assistance, and Jerusha Daniels is Grounded Solutions Network’s Affordable Housing Principal.