Some Milwaukee community groups are 'buying back the block' one home at a time

Milwaukee nonprofit Acts Housing is addressing the city's homeownership gap with a comprehensive model that combines HUD-certified education, one-on-one financial coaching, alternative lending and a property acquisition arm that competes with investors to preserve housing inventory for buyers. Over three decades, the program has helped more than 4,000 individuals and families purchase homes.

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.

Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) like BlueHub Loan Fund are stepping up to help create and preserve affordable housing. BlueHub Loan Fund recently financed a project in Nashville that converted two abandoned motels into affordable studio apartments, when larger banks wouldn’t finance the project.

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.

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.

South Dakota Habitat for Humanity affiliates are tackling the affordable housing crisis by shifting from building single homes to developing entire subdivisions. In Sioux Falls, Habitat completed a 26-unit project and in Rapid City, Habitat purchased land and secured a $12.5 million funding package to build 40 units in the organization's largest-ever South Dakota development. Both projects are pricing homes below $300,000, making ownership more accessible to working-class families.