Kôr Community Land Trust provides environmentally sustainable and permanently affordable homeownership opportunities for those who contribute to the fabric of the Bend area economy and community. We do this using the traditional community land trust model of individually owned homes on trust-owned land. We serve mixed-income demographics who would otherwise not be able to realize the stability of homeownership due to the high (and increasing) cost of real estate in Central Oregon. We are a grassroots organization built out of deep love and passion for this town we call home.
Our first project is a joint venture with Housing Works of Central Oregon. It is a 0.46-acre parcel on Hurita Place and SE 27th. We have begun the subdivision process that will allow us to build five 1100 square feet, two bedrooms, two-bath homes. We plan to open our application process for potential homebuyers in the summer of 2019 when we begin the building of the homes. At this time, it is crucial to not only have a database that manages this process but to have a tool that helps us track the metrics associated with the whole health and life benefits of stable housing. These needs (and more) can be satisfied through the HomeKeeper database.
HomeKeeper is a web-based salesforce application specifically created by and for affordable homeownership programs with long-term affordability restrictions. It is capable of tracking, managing, and reporting on all aspects of the project (individuals, households, and projects as a whole) and offers the convenience of doing this in one database. The program also includes a National Data Hub, where our organization can benchmark how our program is performing against other similar program metrics across the country. Additionally, as part of the on- boarding process, HomeKeeper staff will review how our program is setup and will configure the database so that it meets the program’s needs and measures the metrics that we aim to track over time. They customize the application workflow for organizations as part of the on-boarding process, which allows HomeKeeper to match how we do our daily work in the most efficient manner. This will also allow us to leverage our organization's scarce time and resources by allowing us to track applicant data and demographics as well as where our potential homeowners are in our application pipeline.
“One aspect unique to community land trusts is that they are committed to actively involve those served in the organization’s governance. Following the completion of our first five homes, two homeowners joined the Board of Directors. One homeowner, Brett, serves as part of the Executive Committee in the role of Secretary on Kôr's Board of Directors. Brett recently moved into his Kôr home with his wife Michelle and young son Finn. He was excited to join Kôr’s Board of Directors because of his history of community involvement. He is eager to increase access to the Community Land Trust so that more households can benefit from the model in the way that his family has been able to.”
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- The purpose of this project is to ensure that our homeowners will have affordable home payments, the opportunity for little to no energy costs, and will be insulated from an increase in either. The median income in Bend is approximately $60,000/yr. (U.S. Census Bureau). The median home cost is around $450,000 (January 2019, Beacon Appraisal Group). The household income needed to qualify for the median home cost is right around $100,000/yr. The result is that over half of our population is priced out of homeownership in Bend. A search of available homes affordable to 80% AMI households ($210,000, March 2019, realtor.com) came up with only 20 listings. All the listings were (vacation) condominiums or manufactured homes, both of which are difficult to finance. Putting roots down in our town through homeownership is out of reach for most of our workforce as well as retired and disable individuals on a fixed income. The only other housing option is rental. Not only are rentals scarce but are also extremely volatile to incremental increases in cost, resulting in severe rent burden for many of Central Oregonians.
- The goal is stable housing that presents the opportunity for those in our program to build equity in other areas of their life. Decreased house burden in households has been correlated with a decrease in criminal activity, and reliance on other social services, as well as an increase in health and wellbeing, educational success, community and civic participation, and quality family time (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Research Division, April 2012). With HomeKeeper, we can track this with intake/exit surveys and annual evaluations of those in our program.
- This project was implemented by Kôr Community Land Trust.
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The project attempted to:- Track the whole health benefits of stable housing on very low- to middle-income households and individuals through time.
- Allow our organization to leverage our limited staff resources by reducing application and survey input time.
- Use our metrics to create reports that illustrate the short and long-term benefits of stable, affordable housing on education, financial stability, community engagement, health, and wellbeing.
- Benchmark our data with that of similar programs throughout the nation.
- Track the permanent and temporary subsidy that goes into each home.
- Track the cost of energy savings for each household due to the goal of net-zero building strategies.
Kôr closed on its first five homes in May 2021.
With HomeKeeper, Kôr was able to record all its homeowner demographics, income, and closing information in its database.
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- We experienced a funding delay for the project so will not meet the timeline for the goal: By June 2020, Kôr Community Land Trust (CLT) will provide five owner-occupied homes to approximately 12-15 individuals. We are currently on track to meet that goal by January 2021.
- We experienced a funding delay for the project so will not meet the timeline for the goal: By June 2020, Kôr Community Land Trust (CLT) will provide five owner-occupied homes to approximately 12-15 individuals. We are currently on track to meet that goal by January 2021.
HomeKeeper has helped Kôr collect interested applicant's information and digitally store applicant information in the database, track homeowner information once closed on their Kôr home, document housing subsidies and donations, and report on applicant demographics and income.