Crooked Forest Institute recently received a $200,000 grant from the Tides Foundation. Crooked Forest Institute is a Silver City-based 501c3 non-profit organization that is focussing on building affordable housing on a local Community Land Trust. The Tides Foundation envisions a world of shared prosperity and social justice founded on equality and human rights, sustainable environment, quality education, and healthy individuals and communities. Since 1976, Tides has partnered with innovative organizations to accelerate the pace of social change and solve society's toughest problems. Crooked Forest Institute is proud to have been selected as an organization that contributes to that legacy.
With the generous support in the form of this substantial unrestricted grant, Crooked Forest Institute plans to finalize the purchase of 32 acres for their education campus in Grant Count, NM, to establish a solid fiscal foundation for their future programs and to develop the capacity to have a meaningful positive impact on the creation of healthy and affordable neighborhoods in Grant County.
Crooked Forest Institute was established in 2022 with five educational priorities; Non-Toxic Living, Local Economy, Adobe Construction, Shared-Equity Land Ownership and Ecological Restoration. Their intention is to help to establish a local Community Land Trust (CLT) that is designed to provide safe, affordable housing in perpetuity for the benefit of the community. Once this CLT is established, Crooked Forest Institute intends to become a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) that builds multiple neighborhoods on the CLT for low-income residents who earn between 30% and 80% of the local average median income (AMI) which is about $15,000 to $40,000 annual income in Grant County.
Community Land Trusts, a shared-equity model of land ownership, first gained popularity during the civil rights era, as vehicles for consumer protection and social justice among disenfranchised populations. They have proven to be a reliable foundation for perpetually affordable housing efforts in 225 cities and towns around the US. During the housing crisis following the 2008 financial meltdown, homes in Community Land Trusts were ten times less likely to end up in foreclosure.
Like their role model, Community Rebuilds, in Moab, Utah, Crooked Forest Institute intends to build houses on a CLT using a community-building model. This means their students and volunteers who contribute labor hours on each build get a free education while they are lowering labor costs for each homeowner. Each home will be small, only 400 square feet, but made of adobe and is intended to last for generations, unlike other affordable housing models.
The $200,000 grant will be dedicated to furthering Crooked Forest's mission by securing the location of their 32-acre education campus, searching for matching grants, developing the messaging of their vision, articulating both landscape and architectural design plans, establishing a Community Land Trust and preparing to build prototypes.
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