RELEASE: From Local Roots to Global Reach, World Community Land Trust Day 2025 Celebrates Growing Momentum
GLOBAL, May 2025 — On May 16, communities across the globe will come together to celebrate World Community Land Trust Day 2025, lifting up the power of collective land ownership, community resilience, and the belief that everyone deserves a place to call home.
World CLT Day isn’t a single event—it’s a global expression of solidarity. Whether through affordable housing, land stewardship, urban farming, or economic development, CLTs are making a real difference in people’s lives. Now in its fourth year, the celebration includes online events, local gatherings, and international conversation, all reflecting a growing movement to build more just, sustainable, and rooted communities.
At the heart of this year’s celebration is a global learning session on May 15, featuring World Habitat Award-winning CLTs from Puerto Rico, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Hosted by the International Center for Community Land Trusts in partnership with World Habitat and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the event will explore what it takes to build communities that last, and why the world is paying attention.
While May 16 marks the official celebration, events are taking place before, during, and after World CLT Day 2025. On May 14, CLT organizers and practitioners will gather for an open dialogue on how communities are responding to climate change—from sustainable building to collective resilience. And on May 16, Catalytic Communities will host a session focused on the emerging CLT movement in Brazil, where organizers are reclaiming land and shaping new paths forward in informal settlements.
Panelists will share real-world experiences from diverse contexts, including the Caño Martín Peña CLT in San Juan, Puerto Rico, recipient of the 2016 World Habitat Award, where residents have organized to defend their territory and turn decades of public neglect into a powerful example of community-led development.
“Community land trusts are a proven tool for conscious, democratic, and alternative development—one that centers human beings in the process and gives them power over their present and future,” said Mariolga Juliá Pacheco, Director of the Office of Participation Citizenship and Social Development at the Caño. “In our case, the CLT has also played a vital role in times of austerity and state abandonment, reclaiming public spaces and caring for them to protect the health and safety of our community.”
Reflecting on the broader potential of CLTs, Dr Jess Steele from Hastings Commons in the UK, a 2025 recipient of the World Habitat Award, added: “CLTs resonate across different contexts because they appeal to a fundamental need for belonging and agency. Together, we can meet our own needs, look after our own places and people.”
People everywhere are invited to take part by sharing stories, photos, and messages using #WorldCLTDay2025. Last year, more than 100 organizations from 31 countries took part, with events ranging from a lobbying day in Boston to the official launch of the Australian CLT Network. This year, local groups are once again organizing events from film screenings to youth art projects, adding their voices to a growing global chorus calling for just and lasting community ownership.
“CLTs give us the opportunity to think globally and act locally,” said Michael Monte, CEO of 2008 World Habitat Award recipient Champlain Housing Trust in Vermont, USA. “Knowing that we are a part of an international movement that chooses to empower our residents and communities is incredibly satisfying. We do this by fighting displacement and gentrification through permanent affordability while giving our communities the opportunities to self-govern.”
This year’s celebration arrives on the heels of a new series of six global commentaries, published this week by Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the International Center for CLTs, featuring perspectives from Australia, Canada, Brazil, Europe, France, and the United Kingdom. The commentaries reflect on the landmark publication Preserving Affordable Homeownership and the evolving role of CLTs across diverse contexts. It also comes just weeks ahead of the International Social Housing Festival in Ireland, where CLTs will again be on the global stage during a session hosted by the European CLT Network in partnership with the International Center for CLTs.
Together, these efforts reflect a growing international movement committed to reimagining ownership, affordability, and community resilience worldwide. In a world facing housing crises, climate disruption, and rising inequality, World CLT Day offers something rare: hope grounded in action and a growing movement rooted in people power.
Learn more, share your story, or add your event to the calendar at worldcltday.org. Use #WorldCLTDay2025 on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, and LinkedIn to join the celebration.
About the International Center for Community Land Trusts (CLT Center):
The International Center for Community Land Trusts is a nonprofit organization founded in 2018 to support the worldwide movement of CLTs, as well as similar strategies of community-led development on community-owned land. Governed by a board of directors drawn from seven different countries, the center is a bridge, connecting practitioners across national boundaries; it is a library, archiving historical documents, technical materials, case studies, and academic research on CLTs and related forms of tenure; and it is a think tank, researching and disseminating best practices and supportive policies. The Center publishes books and monographs under its imprint, Terra Nostra Press.
Contact:
Ben Harris, Director of Communications
International Center for Community Land Trusts
Email: ben@communitylandtrust.net
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