Community-controlled housing, despite its marginal presence in large urban areas, represents spaces of resistance that have emerged out of long-term struggles in low-income and underserved communities. These spaces have been constituted as a means of survival providing permanent affordable housing that neither the market nor the public sector is able or willing to supply; preventing evictions and homelessness; fighting against housing disinvestment and urban decline; and preserving Black and Brown communities. Learning through community-university partnerships and public discussions with community organizers, activists, grassroots groups, and community-based organizations contributing to the city’s housing movement, this research seeks to expose the role community-controlled housing occupies in cities to build sustainable communities, reduce gentrification, prevent displacement, and promote equitable development. It also explores how new community coalitions across neighborhoods and cities are working toward protecting and expanding existing housing models fostering shared ownership and management such as limited-equity housing cooperatives, mutual housing associations, and community land trusts.
COMMUNITY-CONTROLLED HOUSING