Creating Community: Affordable Housing on the San Juan Islands

Creating community is a phrase that can describe and include many things — including ensuring everyone has access to a home. Community Land Trusts are uniquely positioned to provide affordable housing appropriate to the places where they are based. This report describes three successful Community Land Trusts (CLTs) operating on the San Juan Islands of…

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Land Leases & Affordable Housing — an Animated Tale!

Land leases can help address the need for affordable housing

“In conclusion, middle-income housing affordability in Canada has become a profound social and economic crisis worthy of serious and concentrated public policy attention.” — Canada’s Middle-Income Housing Affordability Crisis, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, June 2016     When it comes to tackling the need for affordable housing, the current focus for most government and…

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Affordable Home Ownership Expert Coming to Kelowna

  The BC Rural Centre invites you to a free public lecture featuring Lisa Byers, Executive Director of the OPAL (“Of People And Land”) Community Land Trust on Orcas Island, Washington State.  Lisa will discuss how the OPAL CLT has created over 130 affordable housing units on Orcas Island over the past 25 years.  Creating Affordable…

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Affordable Rural Housing & Community Land Trusts

  Affordable rural housing is an issue in many small, remote communities. Community Land Trusts can be an effective approach to tackling this challenge, providing affordable, appropriate housing for rural residents unable to crack the commercial housing market. Brenda Torpy, CEO of the Champlain (Vermont) Housing Trust, discusses her approach to stewarding land for the…

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Some Canadian Towns Give Away Land to Attract New Residents

Large parts of Canada were settled thanks to government policies of giving out free land to anyone willing to show up and farm it. And although the federal government largely stopped giving out Crown land in the 1930s, some small towns are continuing the tradition by giving their land away for free. Morgan Lowrie of the…

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