our history
While incomes in Portland stagnated (and even fell) throughout the 1990s, housing prices soared. As a result, moderate income households were priced out of the market.
Rapidly increasing housing prices led to the displacement of many long-term residents in close-in neighborhoods. Many residents 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 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. Because of this 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.
