The challenge

Early 21st Century urban America suffers from a severe shortage of affordable housing. In 2002, the bipartisan, congressionally chartered Millennial Housing Commission reported that homeownership stands at an historic high of 67.8 percent — but working full-time no longer guarantees access to decent housing. Some 28 million Americans spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Homeownership for blacks and Hispanics lags 27 percent behind the national average. The average yearly income of the lowest-paid 20 percent of Americans is now $10,500 — or 4 percent of all money earned in the nation.

“The nation has experienced its greatest economic boom ever and yet each year we have more homeless families,” according to Brenda Torpy and Mary Houghton of the Burlington Community Land Trust, describing their challenge in a recent essay. “The social safety net has been decimated and our cities are left to crumble… In Burlington, housing prices have skyrocketed due to many factors, including rapid gentrification, a growing university community, and a limited number of available building sites. Renting, homeownership, and private ownership of land is now impossible for many people of low or even moderate income.”


Seeds of commitment

In the early 1980’s, Brenda Torpy, serving as the city of Burlington’s housing programs administrator, concluded that conventional public or government housing programs did nothing to reduce long-term inequities in the housing market as it was traditionally structured. She felt strongly that a decent home should be within everyone’s reach and that Burlington and the nation needed a better approach to affordable housing. Three decades ago, Mary Houghton, working as a financial analyst for an insurance company, read about the concept of community land trusts in reports published by the International Independence Institute; she decided that the idea of community control of land for housing made practical sense. Today, Burlington Mayor Peter Clavelle says of the two: “They are both so aware of the disparity between resources one sees among people in our communities.”


Accomplishments

Urban leaders around the country are showing increased interest in alternative ways to provide affordable housing; at the same time, employers are scrambling to find ways to house workers within commuting range. To meet these challenges, Burlington has emerged as a working laboratory. Organized in 1984 as a self-help community development organization, B.C.L.T. set out to revitalize core neighborhoods in Burlington and to provide permanently affordable housing for the region. It has since become one of the largest community land trusts in the nation, with a portfolio of 250 homeownershp properties, 250 rental units, 65 cooperative homes and five community facilities serving low income people. Many of these units, homes and facilities are renovated houses or warehouses; some are located on cleaned up toxic sites.

B.C.L.T.’s homeownership program, known as HOMELAND, is structured to ensure that homes remain affordable to low income buyers not only this year but for decades to come. B.C.L.T. provides grants to income-eligible buyers that greatly reduce the cost of purchasing a home. Under the sales agreement, the buyers own the house; the Trust owns the land. The buyers also receive a course in home ownership. For the buyers, “the only thing in the ground lease that’s different from (conventional) ownership is that when they go to sell, they can’t take all the profit with them, and we can make it affordable a second time around. And they get 25 percent of the inflation, which is just the market appreciation,” Torpy explains. “So let’s say you bought a house at $80,000 and then when you go to sell, it appraises at $100,000 — you get the $5,000 profit plus what you put into it, and the $15,000 goes to subsidize the next buyer.” The approach works so well that Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, a state organization, adopted it statewide. Similarly, the city of Burlington relies on the capacity of B.C.L.T. to carry out its ambitious housing agenda.

Torpy and Houghton view affordable housing as the core of wider community reform. For example, they helped develop a family emergency shelter, as well as special-needs housing for homeless women, the mentally ill and people with H.I.V./AIDS. They also helped create single-room occupancy rentals, scattered-site rental housing, housing cooperatives, a neighborhood park, and five community buildings — including a children’s day-care facility and a senior center. Collaborating with other non-profit organizations, B.C.L.T. redeveloped foreclosed properties into non -profit centers, a daytime center for the homeless, a food bank and Legal Aid offices. The complex financing arrangements involved city-issued bonds, local bank investors and capital fund drives. Partnering with the Rose Street Neighborhood Association, B.C.L.T. helped develop Vermont’s first affordable artists’ cooperative. Although initially opposed by some in the real estate industry, B.C.L.T. now owns and operates the region’s Homeownership Center, where realtors, bankers, attorneys, and housing inspectors volunteer at homeownership training workshops. Urban leaders across the nation view B.C.L.T.’s successful methods as one of several possible solutions to the affordable-housing crisis.


Their leadership style

Community outreach, openness, consistency and a reputation for reliability mark Torpy and Houghton’s stewardship of B.C.L.T., which has a staff of 26. The two leaders are responsible to a board of directors comprised of landholders and residents from the broader community (those who do not own B.C.L.T. homes), public officials, non-profit organizations and others. Torpy and Houghton actively train selected staff members to assume greater management responsibilities. Torpy promotes cooperation among community non-profit groups through monthly meetings with city staff and informal joint planning sessions. And B.C.L.T. continues to mentor and empower homeowners. Bob Robbins, president of the B.C.L.T. board of directors, describes their leadership style: “They seek out projects that no other organization would attempt, because they understand intuitively that a community development organization needs to take calculated risks if it is to show the kind of demonstrable results that attract funders and empower resident communities. Together they are able to combine visionary thinking with skilled financial management and resource development.”

The future

Houghton’s goal is to ensure the organization’s continued financial strength and stability. She also plans to continue serving on the board of the National Institute for Community Economics, so that community land trusts across the country will receive greater support and recognition. Torpy hopes to guarantee B.C.L.T.’s sustainability by building financial reserves and an endowment. Both leaders hope to see the community land trust approach spread across the country, helping create a greater supply of housing units — and a new climate of community in America.


More about Brenda Marion Torpy and Mary Houghton

“They have an incredible passion and commitment to the work that they do. It’s not a job for them, it’s a mission. They are always willing to take on projects that other people think are impossible. Their dogged persistence combined with enthusiasm and their competence in this area make them successful. ... Their driving passion is to serve the needs of the community, particularly the disenfranchised and under-served.”
— Peter Clavelle, Mayor of Burlington, VT