For Immediate Release: March 24, 2026
Contact: Katy Lasell, New Economy Project, katy@neweconomyproject.org
As displacement and homelessness accelerate statewide, driven by longstanding racial and economic inequities, groups call for scaling community land trusts and permanently affordable housing
Albany, NY – On Monday, 55 community groups and advocacy organizations from across New York State delivered a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and key state legislators urging $7.5 million in the FY 2027 budget for two critical programs that support community-controlled housing, including community land trusts (CLTs).
The signatories, which included New Economy Project, the NYC Community Land Initiative, the New York Working Families Party, and Enterprise Community Partners, called on lawmakers to increase funding for the CLT Support Program and the Community Controlled Affordable Housing (CCAH) Program, which provide catalytic support to the growing CLT movement—enabling them to strengthen operations and move housing projects forward.
The CLT Support Program, launched by Governor Hochul last year, provides operating support to NYC-based CLTs developing permanently affordable housing on community-controlled land. The CCAH Program provides predevelopment funding and other support to affordable housing projects that emphasize resident governance and long-term affordability, such as CLTs, shared equity cooperatives, and similar models.
The Executive Budget and One-House Resolutions released this winter maintain last year’s levels of funding—$1.5 million for the CCAH Program and $1 million for the CLT Support Program. The groups are urging the Governor and Legislature to increase those amounts to $5 million and $2.5 million, respectively.
CLTs are community-controlled nonprofit organizations that take land and housing off the speculative market and steward it for long-term public benefit. More than 30 CLTs across New York State are now meeting urgent community needs, from deeply affordable housing to community and cultural spaces.
In the letter, groups pointed to the state’s worsening affordability crisis and highlighted CLTs as a proven tool to keep housing permanently affordable and prevent displacement:
Across the state, CLTs are organizing residents, acquiring buildings and bringing land into permanently affordable community control. Existing state funding is already producing transformative results… An increase to $7.5M in total state funding would prove catalytic, equipping the more than 30 existing CLTs statewide with the resources needed to prepare acquisitions, revitalize buildings, and create affordable and accessible community spaces—keeping more families in their homes and building lasting wealth and stability in redlined and disinvested communities across the state.