The Houston Community Land Trust began in 2018 after a grant of $1 million was awarded by the Houston City Council to start the nonprofit.
The grant assisted HCLT’s goal of putting affordable houses – payments of $1,200 per month or less – back on the market.
Tom McCasland, director of the Houston Department of Housing and Community, saw a need when he started his position in 2016.
“It felt like we were on a treadmill and the treadmill was turned up too high,” McCasland told the Texas Observer. “We had more units rolling out of affordability and into the open market than we were putting in. The affordable housing crisis was just getting bigger and bigger despite us working as hard as we could to try to address it.”
As prices for homes rise, homeownership has redefined the life of Houston resident Regina Daniels.
Daniels was renting a home in the Acres Homes neighborhood for $1,200 per month, when the rent in the area where she had been since high school was set to increase yet again. She decided it was finally time to buy a home. However, the listing price of the homes in her neighborhood were well over $200,000. Prices for homes in Texas have skyrocketed and Houston has gentrified faster than any other Texas city. This poses a specific hurdle for African-American buyers like Daniels.
“I was going to have to make some major sacrifices,” Daniels said, “I was going to end up mortgage-broke.”
Daniels eventually settled with the Houston Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that sells affordable homes in the area. The trust sells affordable homes, but the trust will still be in ownership of the land on which the house stands.
Now, Daniels only pays $725 a month towards her home, $675 of which goes to a 30-year mortgage. The remaining amount goes to the Houston Community Land Trust. For her, she said that's a major relief each month when she sits down to pay her bills.
“It used to be the only thing I could think about was which money I was going to move around in order to take care of things,” Daniels said.
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