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BCLT Participates in Washington D.C. Workforce Housing Initiative

Many Washington D.C. area residents cannot find appropriate housing. Demand exceeds supply. Prices continue to rise dramatically. Government responses for families with low income levels address but certainly do not solve the challenges. And families earning above those levels face dramatic challenges too. Efforts to assist low-income families are essential, but they are not sufficient.

Moderate- and middle-income, “workforce” families need high-quality housing within the Washington D.C. Communities that lose workforce housing lose key families that solidify neighborhoods, strengthen schools, and improve economic opportunity. Washington, D.C. has the opportunity to generate more workforce housing and keep it affordable permanently at a low subsidy cost.

Because of its expertise in creating successful permanently affordable housing, Burlington Community Land Trust is participating in the new pilot program initiative to acquire, preserve and construct 10,000 to 15,000 units of housing appropriate for workforce families, and a mechanism to keep the housing affordable on a permanent basis in Washington, D.C. Colin Bloch, BCLT’s Homeownership Program Director, is a member of the Washington D.C. Workforce Housing Initiative steering committee.

By using a community land trust model – or a similar structure – D.C. can create a vibrant sector of workforce housing in perpetuity, at a subsidy cost of just a few pennies on the dollar.

D.C. government and private partners will invest land or financing worth tens of millions of dollars and generate housing worth several billion dollars that will be affordable to working families for generations. The value to the Washington D.C. region will be immense and unique among major cities: creating in the city’s neighborhoods permanently affordable housing for our teachers, office workers, public safety officers, civil servants, small business owners, and other working families.

For further information, contact:

Colin Bloch
Burlington Community Land Trust
Phone: 802-864-2609
Email: Cbloch@getahome.org