Community ownership is a people-centered approach to real estate ownership, one that prioritizes shared opportunity and community benefit over private gain. It reimagines local land and property as shared and controlled by neighbors, rather than commodities to be bought and sold for profit. 

By giving residents and business owners a real stake in their neighborhood’s future, it helps keep wealth and decision-making power where they belong—with the community itself. 

While we refer to community ownership as one field, it isn’t one thing. It takes many forms, each shaped by people working together and navigating the systems around them.

In the U.S., who owns the land often determines who has stability, wealth, and even good health. But for generations, property ownership has been concentrated in the hands of a few, and used mainly to generate private profit rather than to benefit the people who call that place home. 

The result? Over the past 30 years, home prices have soared while wages have stagnated, leaving nearly half of renters and one in four homeowners struggling to keep up. 

For small businesses, the story isn’t much different: about 40% couldn’t cover rent in full at the start of 2025. Many are being priced out as commercial rents climb, weakening local economies and taking away the shops and gathering places that keep neighborhoods strong.

In short, this looks like: local wealth extraction, gentrification, and displacement — all of which drive racial and health disparities. 

Community ownership offers another way. It challenges the idea that real estate should serve the highest bidder above all else. When communities collectively own and control the places where they live and work, they can: 

• Keep property affordable for the long term.
• Shape their own neighborhoods and protect residents from displacement.
• Reinvest profits back into the community.
• Build local wealth and decision-making power that lasts.

A stronger field of community ownership starts with shared knowledge. The Lab is working to advance this field by giving everyone involved—from practitioners to funders to policymakers—new ways to: 

• See how community ownership builds local wealth, stability, and power
• Talk about it using shared language and narrative strategies that resonate and inspire
• Act on it using tools that build buy-in, strengthen partnerships, and support real-world practice