Network advocates community land trusts to fight displacement

Boston community organizers will launch a community land trust network on Wednesday, April 27, according to the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI). Leaders of the Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network advocate for land trusts as an anti-displacement strategy in the midst of a city-wide conversation about gentrification.

At the land trust network’s 6 p.m. launch at the Great Hall of Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, members “will outline a set of policy recommendations to support the use of Community Land Trust as a tool for neighborhood stabilization by increasing access to land, capital, technical assistance and homeowner resources,” according to the DSNI release.

Advocates cite the Mayor’s Office of Housing Innovation and a Special Senate Commission on Housing report for identifying community land trusts as cost stabilizers and gentrification mitigators.

A Tufts University Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department report will be released at the Wednesday launch, leaders said, focused on the benefits of such land trusts and their implementation across the country.

The Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network includes: Chinatown Community Land Trust, City Life/Vida Urbana, The Coalition for Occupied Homes in Foreclosure (COHIF), Dudley Neighbors, Inc., Mattapan United, New England United for Justice, The Urban Farming Institute, Greater Bowdoin/Geneva Neighborhood Association, Alternatives for Community and Environment and Boston Tenant Coalition.


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