Posted by:
Steve Dubb
Champlain Housing Trust (Vermont) wins World Habitat Award
The Champlain Housing Trust, then known as the Burlington Community Land Trust, was initiated by the City of Burlington in 1984 as an experiment that aimed to slow gentrification of urban neighborhoods and provide housing ownership opportunity for low and moderate income households. The innovative community land trust “shared-equity” program of homeownership developed at this time, where owners share the market appreciation of their homes with the next buyers when they sell, has been replicated through the country and in other parts of the world. Today 2,100 families and individuals live in Champlain Housing Trust homes. In 2007, 117 new homebuyers joined the group, amounting to almost $20,000,000 in mortgage commitments. In addition to mortgages, the Housing Trust is leveraging a $59.4 million investment in real estate development that it anticipates will lead to the creation or preservation of another 320 permanently affordable apartments and owner-occupied homes in the next eighteen months.
Each year, since 1985, the World Habitat Awards have been granted to one project from the global South and one from the global North that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs. An award of £10,000 (roughly US $20,000) is presented to the winning projects at the annual UN global celebration of World Habitat Day. Champlain Housing Trust is only the sixth award winner from the United States in the 23 years of the contest. The UK-based Building and Social Housing Foundation administers the contest, at the request of UN Habitat, the United Nations’ Human Settlements program, which is mandated by the United Nations’ General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.
The UK-based Building and Social Housing Foundation is an independent research group that promotes sustainable development and innovation in housing. Established in 1976, BSHF works both in the UK and internationally to identify innovative housing solutions and to foster the exchange of information and model practices. A list of its publications is available here.
Information about prior World Habitat award finalists and winners is available here. Past U.S.-based award winners are:
1) Common Ground Community of New York City (see also the organization’s homepage here, which received an award in 2003 for its 416-unit “Prince George” supportive housing development.
2) East Lake Commons Conservation Community of Atlanta, Georgia, which received an award in 2001 for combining sustainable housing with open space preservation.
3) Tent City, a development which received an award in 1995 for providing 269 units of mixed income housing in Boston, Massachusetts,
4) The Frank G. Mar Community Housing Project of Oakland, California, a development which provided housing for 350, space for child care, and 12,500 square feet of commercial space, received an award in 1991. This particular development was a joint venture of East Bay Area Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), a community development corporation and the large nonprofit housing developer Bridge Housing.
5) St. Vincent De Paul Village of San Diego, California, which became the first U.S. award winner in 1988 for its homelessness intervention work. The organization remains active today as can be seen here.