By Gretchen Beesing, Senior Fellow, Center for Community Investment
An enduring vision for many people across the country is to collectively own local land and buildings, thus controlling how those properties are used and who benefits from them. It’s a way for people to not only care for their neighborhoods and neighbors, but to also push back against outside influences that are exploiting and extracting value from communities. While there are some forms of community ownership—like community land trusts, limited-equity co-ops, and resident-owned manufactured housing parks—that are fairly well-known, there are new ones being developed as well to serve communities in new ways.
What if community ownership wasn’t the exception, but the norm? What if our housing, commercial corridors, and public lands were governed not by speculation, but by stewardship? In cities and towns across the country, communities are already proving it’s possible. From rural California to urban Chicago, from Black-led cooperatives in the South to Indigenous rematriation efforts in the Northwest, people are reclaiming control of the places they live—not just to survive, but to flourish.
“Community ownership” (also called shared ownership) refers to ownership of real estate by a community or a group rather than by an individual or private entity. Shared ownership models are designed to ensure that the control and benefits of land ownership remain within the community, typically to promote affordable housing, preserve cultural heritage, support economic development, generate clean energy, or provide communal spaces. Ownership structures vary widely and commonly strive to prevent speculation, preserve affordability, and/or build community wealth.
Community ownership isn’t just about affordability. It’s about dignity, belonging, and control. It’s about breaking cycles of extraction and anchoring joy, safety, and intergenerational wealth. Ownership isn’t about leverage, it’s about visibility.
That’s why it’s so important today. And that’s why it’s time to bring this promise to more people and more communities. But to do that, we needed to understand the current community ownership landscape. The Center for Community Investment’s Spectrum of Development in the Community Real Estate Ownership Ecosystem was created to map how community ownership efforts evolve. Through that work, we learned that there can be a progression from a single project to batches of projects, to pipelines, to full-blown ecosystems, and finally to a field that changes national norms.
We also learned that community ownership efforts don’t follow a linear progression; they’re part of an evolving, interdependent field where projects, policies, and partnerships emerge, interact, and adapt to local conditions. As efforts expand, powerful feedback loops are created: individual projects inform national strategies, policy wins unlock new local opportunities, and strong ecosystems strengthen the entire field. Each new level requires more than ambition—it requires infrastructure.
This article explains that arc, drawing on dozens of interviews with practitioners, organizers, and funders. Their stories and strategies illustrate what it takes to move from scattered wins to systemic transformation—and why making that move matters.
Supporters of EPNI and the East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm project march down Longfellow Avenue, across the street from the former Roof Depot, demanding a sustainable, prosperous, healthy, and self-determined future for the East Phillips neighborhood. Photo by Devon Young Cupery
THE PROJECT: A SINGLE WIN THAT SHIFTS THE HORIZON
Every community ownership effort starts with a spark. That spark is often—but not always—a single project born of necessity, fueled by vision, and made real through grit. But the most transformative projects don’t just succeed; they shift what’s possible.
The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) in Minneapolis embodies this potential. On a 7.5-acre site poisoned by decades of environmental racism and located in a neighborhood that is 80 percent people of color—including 20 percent Native American residents representing 38 different tribes with a median income of just $17,850—local organizers are working to acquire and develop a community-owned resilience hub. The organizers envision that the project would produce over 2 million pounds of vegetables and 100,000 pounds of fish annually through aquaponics, power 200 homes via a 2.65 megawatt solar array, and offer affordable spaces for local businesses.
While EPNI secured $10.2 million and holds a purchase agreement for the site, it faces a $5.7 million funding shortfall after the Minnesota Legislature couldn’t appropriate remaining funds, leaving the project temporarily stalled despite the property being appraised at far below the city’s asking price.
EPNI has designed a unique legal and governance structure that would integrate a member-led nonprofit with a cooperatively structured Community Investment Fund (CIF). Through this proposed model, neighborhood residents would participate in decision-making, commercial tenants could acquire equity shares, and both community and Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) investors would receive financial returns—but QOZ investors would have limited governance power. Investment eligibility is being determined through a one-year governance process led by a tripartite board structure where the Community Investment Fund board requires a majority of residents from the project’s ZIP code or adjacent ZIP codes, while EPNI’s board maintains an East Phillips resident majority and Little Earth Protectors represents Native residents from the nearby Little Earth housing complex. Resident investment shares will be accessible at $10-$100 per share.
Smith Foundry, a iron foundry operating in the neighborhood was found to be emitting airborne lead and 8 other violations of the Clean Air Act. After decades of community members reporting odious fumes and disproportionate illness in children and residents, the EPA worked with EPNI and other climate activist groups to close the Foundry in August 2024 after over 100 years of operation. Photo courtesy of EPNI
EPNI has designed a unique legal and governance structure that would integrate a member-led nonprofit with a cooperatively structured Community Investment Fund (CIF). Through this proposed model, neighborhood residents would participate in decision-making, commercial
“This structure is designed to deepen existing roots and strengthen the bonds between neighbors,” says Daniel Colten Schmidt, EPNI’s finance and development director. The project arose from years of resistance to plans that would have further contaminated the neighborhood. “This isn’t just a development idea,” Colten Schmidt explains. “It is an act of survival built on generations of struggle and informed by cultural values and community self-determination.”
Over time, EPNI plans to transition into a community grantmaking entity, ensuring that any surplus revenues would be reinvested into the neighborhood for long-term affordability, wealth-building, and cultural preservation. Despite financial and political hurdles, EPNI has mobilized significant capital and demonstrated how grassroots organizing can deploy innovative governance and financing strategies in pursuit of community-led redevelopment.
Projects like EPNI demonstrate proof of concept—showing that communities can lead, govern, and benefit from development that centers their needs, even before breaking ground. They become system events when they catalyze broader changes by attracting new actors, unlocking resources, and introducing governance structures that shape how future development will unfold.
THE BATCH: COORDINATED CONTROL ACROSS PLACE
When communities move beyond single projects to coordinated control across multiple properties, they begin to shift the balance of power in a place. This isn’t just about scaling up—it’s about building the capacity for communities to respond strategically to disinvestment and speculation. That’s why the next stage is the batch—multiple projects under shared strategy and governance that scale up single wins into something bigger and more durable.
The Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT) in Philadelphia has taken over more than 30 properties to stabilize a commercial corridor that faced up to 60 percent vacancy on some blocks. Using an innovative structure called a “perpetual purpose trust,” KCT locks properties out of speculative markets while ensuring any surpluses flow back to the community. KCT has financed its purchases with a blend of philanthropic grants and patient, low-interest capital—securing $3.2 million in grants and approximately $15 million in debt financing to date—and is governed through a stewardship committee that includes residents and small business owners.
The perpetual purpose trust model represents a legal innovation that addresses a core challenge in community ownership: how to maintain affordability and community control over time. Unlike traditional CLT models that separate land from buildings, KCT’s approach keeps property ownership unified, while embedding community governance at multiple levels. Any resident in the 19134 ZIP code has legal power to hold the trust accountable, creating unprecedented community oversight. “The community has real power to decide what this corridor becomes,” KCT’s executive director, Adriana Abizadeh, notes. KCT is able to keep rents affordable and properties accessible. But it’s not just stabilizing buildings—it’s stabilizing community identity. A neighborhood long hollowed out by redlining, absentee landlords, and predatory lending is reclaiming its future.
This coordinated approach creates economies of scale, but more importantly, it creates political scale. When a community controls a critical mass of assets, it can negotiate with developers, influence zoning decisions, and resist displacement in ways that it cannot through individual projects. And that’s the real point of the batch stage: demonstrating that community control is not an outlier—it’s a viable, replicable approach to development.
THE PIPELINE: WHEN DEVELOPMENT BECOMES PREDICTABLE
Pipeline development represents a deeper institutionalization of community ownership—the stage where community ownership deals happen reliably because communities have built the governance structures, capital relationships, and policy frameworks to support them. Batches evolve into pipelines when the work becomes coordinated over time—often across organizations—and with strategic capital.
SHARE Baltimore exemplifies this evolution. Having moved beyond individual transactions and batch acquisitions to establish a coordinated, multi-organization approach to community ownership, SHARE represents the pipeline stage. What began as a handful of community land trusts has become a coordinated network of nine organizations working across housing development, policy advocacy, and capital formation. Through tools like the MidAtlantic Regional Loan Fund—which aims to be capitalized at $25 million—SHARE has created infrastructure that makes CLT homeownership deals flow more predictably.
Garrick Good, CEO of the North East Housing Initiative, describes the benefits of a pipeline: “When you can move from one project to the next without reinventing the process, you know you’re not just building housing—you’re building capacity.”
SHARE coordinates property acquisition, provides technical assistance across member organizations, and has helped produce over 40 permanently affordable homes. The network has also secured $47 million for the Baltimore Affordable Housing Trust Fund and is working to capitalize the MidAtlantic Regional Loan Fund. By developing this structured pipeline of permanently affordable housing projects and securing public funding, SHARE ensures a steady flow of projects while institutionalizing community ownership. The goal of the infrastructure is to allow SHARE to respond quickly to opportunities: When properties become available, financing mechanisms are already in place, legal frameworks are tested, and governance structures can be deployed rapidly.
SHARE’s expansion beyond Baltimore and growing influence in policy reform further reflect the hallmarks of this stage—systematizing development, aligning capital strategies with long-term goals, and coordinating multiple stakeholders to sustain impact. This level of coordination doesn’t happen by accident. It requires shared values and co-governance built over time. Pipeline work is rare because it requires something deeper than funding: it requires trust. And in disinvested communities, where trust in institutions is often rightly low, that relational work is foundational.
THE ECOSYSTEM: WHEN INFRASTRUCTURE BECOMES CULTURE
An ecosystem represents the stage where community ownership isn’t just a set of projects or programs, but a shared approach to development. Where pipelines create flow, ecosystems build permanence. At this level, the scaffolding needed for collective ownership—legal support, capital relationships, organizing networks, cultural narratives—becomes embedded in local culture, policy, and institutional practice.
Chicago’s Community WEB, born out of more than $30 million in investment over the past five years, demonstrates what this can look like. The organization emerged from grassroots efforts that stretch back decades—including worker cooperative conversions like New Era Windows, established nearly 20 years ago—and were accelerated by the city’s 2019 Community Wealth Building initiative. The initiative demonstrates how local governments, nonprofits, and grassroots groups can align strategies, funding, and technical assistance to ignite an ecosystem.
The WEB intends to build shared infrastructure for worker cooperatives, community land trusts, limited equity housing, and community investment vehicles across the city’s south and west sides. The ecosystem’s architecture is intentionally comprehensive thanks to city funding and diverse philanthropic support: $5 million invested in nearly 20 technical assistance providers, $3.5 million in planning and pre-development grants reaching 25 early-stage projects, $4 million to seed funds supporting real estate acquisition for community investment vehicles and worker cooperatives, and $3.5 million for purchase price assistance and shared equity housing acquisition.
“What sets Chicago apart isn’t the number of deals. It’s the intentional focus on ecosystem-building,” says Nneka Onwuzurike, executive director of The Community WEB. “We’re creating an interconnected infrastructure that brings together technical assistance, flexible capital, policy strategy, and most importantly, relationship building. Our goal is to build something together that can withstand shifts in both funding and politics.” The WEB’s ecosystem approach extends beyond community organizations to include partnerships with academic institutions and community development financial institutions, demonstrating how community ownership can become embedded across multiple sectors.
But ecosystems are not without tension. As federal ARPA funding (the city’s capital source) winds down, Chicago’s community wealth-building efforts face pressure to transition to self-sustaining community control. By acting as a centralized hub for policy advocacy, capital coordination, and technical support, the next iteration of the WEB will exemplify the systemic approach needed to further institutionalize community-controlled real estate and economic development. Across the country, organizations must navigate competing priorities, different theories of change, and the challenge of maintaining grassroots leadership while engaging institutional partners.
Still, Chicago’s effort shows what’s possible when government, grassroots, and intermediaries align. With the city of Chicago treating it as a policy priority worthy of major investment, community ownership is no longer a fringe idea here.
THE FIELD: CHANGING THE RULES AT SCALE
At the furthest edge of the spectrum is field-building—where the goal is to embed community ownership into the systems that govern housing, finance, and policy at not just local, but regional, national, and global scales. While ecosystems create local permanence, the field creates feedback loops where local activities inform national strategies and national policy changes unlock new local opportunities. The field emerges when community ownership is not just practiced, but normalized, supported, and scaled through policy, capital, and culture.
Grounded Solutions Network (GSN) offers a glimpse of this field-building approach. GSN advocates for right of first refusal laws, public land transfers, and credit access reforms—policies that would lower the barriers for shared ownership everywhere. The organization also creates innovative finance tools and programs designed to operate at national scale, like its Homes for the Future initiative, which leverages tools typically reserved for private equity—pooled acquisition funds, institutional-scale property management, and rapid deployment of capital—to acquire homes and transition them into permanently affordable portfolios managed by community land trusts.
The initiative has plans to reach 400 homes by 2027. As Devin Culbertson, GSN’s vice president of innovative finance, puts it, “We’re not trying to close a deal or even launch a program. We’re trying to expand and normalize a third option for housing that has shown strong demand when available.”
This represents a fundamental shift from treating community ownership as alternative or experimental to embedding it in mainstream housing and community development finance. This is field-building as system change: codifying practices, changing regulations, and shifting the very definition of what development is for and who it should serve.
SO WHAT WOULD IT REALLY TAKE?
Making community ownership the rule, not the exception, requires more than inspiring case studies. It calls for remaking systems. That means shifting both money and meaning—assumptions as well as assets. Based on the interviews we did for our Spectrum of Development in the Community Real Estate Ownership Ecosystem report, five core shifts will be essential:
1. A Moral and Narrative Realignment Ownership must be redefined—not as a mechanism for extracting value from property, but as a practice of care and belonging. We need narrative strategies that uplift stewardship and restoration, rather than simply condemning speculation and extraction. Across the field, practitioners are embracing what they call “ecosystem thinking”—understanding their work not as isolated projects but as interconnected fields of practice that require nurturing, coordination, and time to grow.
2. State Power Aligned with Community Goals Cities and states must support community ownership as essential public infrastructure. That includes transferring public land to community ownership projects at below-market rates or for free, embedding community voices in government decision-making processes, and funding the organizing and technical assistance capacity communities need to lead development. We need public agencies that follow the lead of communities. This means enacting right of first refusal laws that give community organizations the opportunity to purchase properties before they go to market; creating tax incentives for collective ownership models; designing inclusionary zoning that creates pathways for shared ownership; and establishing regulatory frameworks that make cooperative and trust-based ownership easier rather than harder to establish and maintain.
3. Capital That Serves People, Not Portfolios From community-controlled funds to reparative finance strategies, we need capital that matches the timelines and values of collective ownership. “Exploratory impact investing isn’t enough,” Culbertson says. “To move the needle on these persistent issues we need meaningful volumes of capital that will invest with a different sense of return.” This means patient, reparative capital from investors and fund managers who understand ownership as a justice strategy and are willing to structure risks and returns accordingly. Examples include revolving loan funds with flexible terms, more community-driven financial institutions designed for cooperative enterprises, and public programs that provide acquisition financing for community ownership conversions.
4. Ecosystem Infrastructure for the Long Haul Technical assistance providers, legal clinics, planning teams, and cultural workers are not side players. They are the ecosystem. Building robust networks that provide legal support for complex ownership structures, financial consulting for blended capital strategies, governance training for democratic decision-making, and organizing capacity that can sustain community engagement over time requires investment in relationships, not just outputs. This infrastructure must be rooted in community organizations rather than dependent on external consultants.
5. New Metrics of Success “Stop asking us how many units we built,” says Good. “Ask us how many people stayed. Ask us if we feel proud.” Metrics must track community control, cultural resilience, and the emotional outcomes of belonging. We need to move beyond units and return on investment toward metrics that capture belonging, community wealth, decision-making power, and the actual transfer of assets into collective control.
Above all, this work requires trust—in communities, in democratic governance, and in the slow, generational work of shifting from reaction to resilience. This trust must be earned through transparency, shared decision-making, and long-term commitment. In communities that have experienced generations of broken promises, it cannot be assumed, nor can it be rushed.
FROM PILOTS TO PARADIGMS
Most shared ownership models started as “pilots,” “proofs of concept,” or “demonstrations.” But at this point, community ownership is no longer an experiment and isn’t new. What’s new are the legal structures, financial tools, and policy frameworks that can support it at scale in contemporary contexts.
The next stop is to make community ownership the rule. To do that we must grow not only the number of projects, but the depth of the ecosystem: the scaffolding of governance, capital, culture, and capacity. This is slow, strategic, reparative, generational work.
And it is already underway; see our Community Real Estate Ownership map of the U.S. here. From Minneapolis to Philadelphia, from Baltimore to Chicago, communities are proving that another way is possible. They’re building the infrastructure for a world where ownership serves stewardship, where belonging replaces extraction, and where communities don’t just survive change, they shape it.
