About

Common-Ground-Logo-Horizontal WEB.jpg

COMMON GROUND Community Housing Trust is a community led development, of individually owned homes, on community owned land.

In the fall of 2020, Serve Wenatchee Valley fiscally sponsored this project with the goal of making home ownership a possibility for families in our community who have been priced out of the market.

The COMMON GROUND Community Housing Trust (CGCHT) is a fiscally sponsored project of Serve Wenatchee Valley with a plan to file for its own 501-c3 nonprofit status. Our mission is to provide quality homes to local wage earners in the greater Wenatchee Valley.

  • Why CGCHT? The greater Wenatchee Valley has a housing crisis. Low inventory and community growth has caused a rising cost of rental units and home sale prices. This leaves much of our area’s workforce having difficulty finding an affordable rental and and impossibility to find a home they can afford to own. We want to solve this problem through the community land trust model which focuses on home ownership, perpetual affordability and stewardship.

  • What does CGCHT do? We build and/or acquire affordable homes to provide home ownership for households earning $30,000 to $50,000 year.

  • How do we build affordable homes? We secure land and cash donations to subsidize our projects. Efficient home design and finding ways to lower our building costs also help make our homes affordable.

  • What’s special about a Community Land Trust? The Housing Trust is a community led development, of individually owned homes, on community owned land. The homes we provide will maintain their affordability forever through land ownership and stewardship of the trust.

  • When can you purchase a home? Next year! Our goal is for our first homes to be built and ready for purchase in late 2022.

How can you or your organization be involved?

  • We need community members who are willing to be a part of this game changer solution and bring their expertise into one or more of the workgroup areas to commit time during development.

  • We need initial administrative capital to establish this program.

    • This includes money for consultants, staff, filing nonprofit application fees, attorney, and accounting fees.

    • We need to secure ongoing administrative capital to operate the nonprofit organization over time.

  • We need capital for future projects that comes in many different forms.

    • Cash donations are needed to build up reserves to move when a project becomes viable.

      • These funds will be needed to acquire land, develop it when needed, and cover home construction costs.

    • Donations of homes and/or land that can be acquired and developed.

  • We need our whole community to be ambassadors of this project.

For additional information about how to be a part of this solution, reach out to:

Thom Nees
Executive Director Serve Wenatchee Valley
& COMMON GROUND Community Housing Trust Project Lead
thom@servewenatchee.org
(509) 630-4438 (cell)

Thank you to the following businesses, organizations, and individuals who have supported the startup work.

North Cascades Bank
Banner Bank
City of Wenatchee
Sharon Crocket, Prime Lending
Wenatchee First Assembly Church
Martin and Tina Barron

If you would like to join the growing number of contributors to COMMON GROUND Community Housing Trust, click the DONATE NOW button below.

Please contact me. I want to learn more about being a part of the COMMON GROUND solution.