About

The Philadelphia Community Land Trust (PCLT) is a non-profit 501(c)3 low-income housing provider which exists to serve people experiencing or who have recently experienced homelessness.

We aim to remove property from the market in order to secure it as a long-term, stable housing stock, insulate neighborhoods from gentrification and meet the income levels of the bottom quarter of Philadelphia living under the poverty line.

We also look to secure vacant land for long term community use and benefit, commercial space to support community development and cooperative or collective businesses.

The PCLT was born out of the housing takeover and homeless encampment protests of 2020. As a result of a five-month campaign, housing organizers with Philadelphia Housing Action and OccupyPHA won a settlement with the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority who agreed to transfer over 50 vacant publicly-owned houses to a community land trust for use as low-income housing.