Earlier this month, World Habitat, along with UN-Habitat, released a new report marking 40 years of recognizing innovative, sustainable, and replicable housing programs from around the globe. Champlain Housing Trust was selected as a winner of the World Habitat Award in 2008, and is featured in the new publication.
What was special about this award was its focus on sharing best practices. After receiving the award, CHT hosted a group of 25 housing practitioners from six different continents to learn from the “Vermont experience” developing Community Land Trusts (CLT) and bring those lessons back home.
“This radical approach means that the cost of housing, whether rented or owned, becomes much more affordable,” the report states. “These models guarantee long-term affordability and access to good housing for low-income residents, and provide a model for community engagement in land and housing management too. CLT residents have true control over the places where they live through the mutual ownership of their land.”
From that visit almost two decades ago, several community land trusts have formed – as well as networks of CLTs – adapting what we have accomplished in our corner of the world to their own.
One attendee, Geert De Pauw, helped set up the first community land trust in Belgium. “The visit went much further than we could have imagined. It was so refreshing to see people so open to sharing everything they have developed over years. The information and support we received enabled us to convince the Belgian authorities that community land trusts were possible,” he said.