The affordable housing model gaining momentum in Vancouver

Amid high housing costs and rapid development, an alternative approach to create and maintain secure, affordable housing is gaining momentum in Vancouver. 

Community land trusts are a way to shield essential assets — in this case, housing — from market speculation, by purchasing or leasing existing buildings or vacant land with the intention of providing long-term affordability and stability for residents. These trusts are governed by non-profit boards, often with input from community advisory groups and tenants. 

Community members in False Creek South, the Downtown Eastside, and Strathcona have each created community land trusts in recent years, a step which often comes from long-term organizing around housing and other neighbourhood issues. 

Creating the False Creek South Community Housing Trust was “the next logical, more practical [and] material extension of conversations and dreams that have been happening long before we moved here,” Sarah Brown, the land trust’s community planning assistant, told Vancity Lookout on a sunny afternoon in the neighbourhood.

“All the things that we've talked about for so long, about building new housing, helping to maintain the existing housing, redeveloping eventually with community in mind – the trust is the vehicle for all of those things to happen,” Robyn Chan, the trust’s managing director, explained.