LA Community Land Trust Program Report Released by Liberty Hill Foundation, with Research Support from LDC
In October, Liberty Hill Foundation, with support from the California Endowment and LeSar Development Consultants, released an independent report on the Los Angeles Community Land Trust (CLT) Partnership Program—a pilot acquisition and rehabilitation program approved and initiated two years ago by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The report, Preventing Tenant Displacement through Community Ownership Pathways, examines the implementation of the program.
With an initial county investment of $14 million, the Pilot CLT Partnership Program preserved eight multifamily properties across all five supervisorial districts with a total of 43 residential units, enabling 110 individuals to live in stabilized affordable housing. These dollars were used to cover the full cost of all acquisitions, without debt, and to partially rehabilitate some properties. Of the occupied units, 95 percent of households are Black, Indigenous and people of color: at least 59 percent of the residents are Latinx, 24 percent are Asian, 7 percent are African American, 5 percent are Caucasian, and 5 percent indicated “other.”
The report showcases the voices and experiences of tenants and implementing partners with the program, underscores equity considerations, and offers key findings and outcomes of the program to date, with short and long-term recommendations.
Overall, the analysis reveals that the pilot program was a cost-effective strategy as compared to other affordable housing preservation efforts and that this type of partnership model with CLTs is a necessary and valuable method that if scaled, could proactively protect working-class Angelenos from falling into homelessness. The report also provides insight into the innovative partnership among the 5 established CLTs in the LA area, their CDCs partners, and the County of Los Angeles to address long-term housing affordability challenges and systemic racial inequities for immigrant, working class, communities of color.
Please reach out to Natalie Donlin-Zappella or Chul Gugich for more information on this program or consulting services to support displacement prevention and community ownership.