Episode 75: How can Virginia make homeownership more affordable?

This year, the average price of a single family home in Virginia crossed the $400 thousand dollar mark. Virginia’s urban populations are expanding without the housing supply to keep up. Staring down skyrocketing prices, many people are forced to accept that homeownership won’t be in their future.

Confronting this goes beyond building more housing... that’s only one arrow in a quiver full of policies that could make housing more affordable. And we need to consider all of those policy arrows in the quiver.

One such arrow is Community Land Trusts, or CLTs. CLTs trace their origins back to the Civil Rights era and are grounded in a philosophy of racial justice. We talk with Erica Sims, CEO of the Maggie Walker CLT in Richmond, about CLTs’ radical vision of "permanently affordable housing."

But first, we talk with Wyatt Gordon, a reporter covering housing, transportation, and land use at Virginia Mercury. He breaks down the "missing middle” housing debate going on in Arlington, and how "missing middle" housing reframes visions of homeownership.  

Click here to learn more about Charles Sherrod, co-founder of the first Community Land Trust "New Communities."