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It was 1998 and Portland home prices were climbing. Fast. Meanwhile, incomes were stagnating and even falling.
Working families were being left behind, priced out of a soaring market. In particular, whole neighborhoods were pricing families out in droves resulting in the displacement of many long-term residents in close-in neighborhoods. Many were forced to leave the neighborhood that they wanted to live in, or, in some cases, where their families had lived for generations, because they could no longer afford to live there.
Community members and government officials, working together, felt that a Community Land Trust (CLT) could help residents who have been priced out of the housing market to achieve the stability and investment opportunity of homeownership.
Sabin Community Development Corporation was the first organization to use the CLT model in the City of Portland, specifically in inner N/NE Portland. The Sabin pilot project successfully sold ten homes using the land trust model. In part because of their success, in 1999, the City of Portland and local housing advocates established Proud Ground (at the time of incorporation, Portland Community Land Trust) to provide permanently affordable homes citywide.
Proud Ground was officially incorporated in December of 1999 and staff was hired in the summer of 2000. Since then, Proud Ground has served more than 125 first-time homebuyers making it the largest organization of its kind in the Northwest.
