Milwaukee's Acts Housing helps people 'buy a home, build a community'

Community organizations in Milwaukee's Metcalfe Park neighborhood are tackling the city's homeownership crisis through lease-to-own programs that convert foreclosed properties into affordable homes for long-term renters. Metcalfe Park Community Bridges' Reclaim and Restore initiative purchases foreclosed homes from the city, rehabs them using donor and foundation funding, and transfers ownership to neighborhood residents through an equity-based lottery system with monthly payments as low as $901.

The Squamish Nation is building Senakw, a 6,000-unit, 11-tower residential development on 10 acres of ancestral land returned to them in Vancouver, one of North America's least affordable cities. Freed from the city's restrictive zoning and land-use laws, the Squamish completed the first three towers in 2025, putting 1,408 rental apartments on the market, including several hundred subsidized units for lower-income families. The first tenants moved in at the end of May, and the project has prompted Vancouver to begin loosening some of its own housing rules.

The “Lodging to Living Fund” at Saul Urban identifies vacant or problematic commercial properties — like old hotels — acquires them and converts them into affordable housing. Repurposing existing buildings cuts project costs in half, allowing developers to offer affordable rates to renters. The Heights at Gateway Park is the first such project and has converted 180 hotel rooms into 88 new apartments.

Project:HOMES bought a local mobile home park, Bermuda Estates, to renovate the units and provide higher-quality, affordable housing. The group raised $4.2 million to repair each unit, build a new community center and host events in the park, all while not increasing rent costs.

Volunteers of the PDX Housing Solidarity Project are working to redistribute generational wealth through homeownership in Portland. The project connects people with ample resources to Black and Indigenous homebuyers and helps facilitate cash gifts, no-interest loans, or other ways to assist throughout the process.

Shacks on Racks relocates houses and works to make homeownership more accessible to area workers. Since starting in 2016, the non-profit has relocated 21 houses. For those 21 saved houses, Shacks on Racks estimates they’ve spared landfills more than 1.2 million pounds of waste.

Homestead Community Land Trust and the local Habitat for Humanity specialize in helping lower-income residents become homeowners. They have portfolios of homes available to lower-income residents who make less than 80% of the area median income. To date, the community land trust model has been implemented at a small scale relative to the need and Habitat plans to build almost 300 new homes in the coming years.

The Sacramento Community Land Trust helps people gain more access to permanently affordable housing while simultaneously working to prevent displacement. Through its work, the Community Land Trust preserves affordability and stability, expands home ownership, and grows community wealth.

The New Markets Tax Credits program provides affordable housing by selling homes with mortgages as low as $550. Since the program gained more traction, the number of owner-occupied buildings in the area has more than doubled to 26% from 12%.

To help families achieve home ownership in a volatile real estate market, the Hannibal Square Community Land Trust acquires land in Winter Park, Fla., and the surrounding area and then builds or renovates homes on the properties to sell to qualified buyers. The program allows families to purchase homes at an affordable price that is not typically available in the current market because buyers are responsible only for the cost of the house, with the land itself remaining in the trust's ownership.