Interrupting Place-Based Inequality: Building Sustainable Communities Through Shared-Equity Homeownership

Cuny Graduate School University Center, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Despite decades of affordable housing policies, stable and sustainable housing for low-income households is scarce and inequality is at an all-time high. Traditional models of low-income ownership have often led to financial losses, foreclosure, a return to renting, or negative home equity. Relocating low- income households to higher income communities has proven difficult to do and successful only under limited conditions. Missing from these models of low-income housing policy is an understanding of the formal economic and institutional arrangements that connect households to economic and social capital. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) present an alternative policy model that provides quality affordable housing through shared equity and institutional arrangements that directly and indirectly provide access to economic, social and cultural capital. CLTs also stabilize the housing market for communities and steward the land so that its uses serve the needs of people who live there. This study investigates the extent to which CLTs bring about improvements in residents' economic, cultural, and social capital and how they affect communities. The underlying hypothesis is that asset accumulation needs to be accompanied by "ontological security" -- the sense that the material and social worlds are trustworthy and constant -- if poor households are to advance. Looking beyond the individual, this study examines the extent to which CLTs are associated with increased community stability and well being. It aims to enlighten debates about how to balance public and private interests in housing, how to make the most of public subsidies, and how to integrate housing provision and community development. The theoretical assumption of decades of low-income housing policy presumes that either market rate homeownership or relocation to more capital rich locations will facilitate the accumulation of economic, cultural and social capital. This study proceeds from an alternate analysis of the requirements for increased accumulation of different forms of capital. The institutional supports and obligations of CLTs and their community benefits are seen as critical in creating the conditions for the accumulation of economic, cultural and social capital by introducing stability into the lives of poor households and producing communities permanently accessible to and supportive of these households. Homeowners in two geographically dispersed CLTs serving ethnically and economically diverse low- and moderate -income populations will be surveyed along with comparison groups of other similar households seeking homeownership. The survey and CLT verified data will be used to examine how CLT homeownership affects household finances (economic capital), educational levels (cultural capital), community engagement (social capital), and sense of stability, safety and ability to move one's life forward (ontological security). Using multi-level models, individual and census data will be analyzed to better understand the community contexts of CLT and non-CLT households and to see how communities are affected by the presence of CLT homes. Census, housing and school data at the census tract level will be used to spatially examine the efficacy of CLT place-making and positive neighborhood effects by comparing previous respondent addresses to CLT and non-CLT present locations.