Disaster ReBuilders embark upon 50-home “community of survivors” in Western Carolina
Disaster ReBuilders embark upon 50-home “community of survivors” in Western Carolina
BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. — Time and time again since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, the Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders have tackled the difficult and often literally dirty work of helping families get back into their homes — or rebuild new ones — after hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes.
They’ve worked in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, West Virginia, New Jersey, Tennessee, and eastern North Carolina, and they remain busy in the tornado- and flood-affected areas around Dawson Springs, Kentucky, as well as parts of Western North Carolina that were heavily damaged by remnants of Hurricane Helene in 2024. The work usually follows a familiar pattern.
“We always go after repairs and restorations first because, theoretically, we can do two of those for the same amount of resources, volunteer labor, and funds that it takes to build a new home,” Disaster ReBuilders President Bart Tucker said. “As we begin to make good progress and the repair homes become harder and harder to find as the recovery progresses, we start to build new homes.”
After repairing and restoring more than 30 homes in Western Carolina, however, they’re embarking upon a unique project with something they rarely have in a disaster-impacted area — a blank landscape.
They have secured a 10-acre parcel in Black Mountain, N.C., and have joined partners in forming a Community Land Trust called ROOTS, CLT. Under this model, they plan to build 50 homes for families whose lives were disrupted by Helene.
“We’re gonna build a community of survivors — folks who get up and go to work every day and probably work two and three jobs just to be able to survive in this region,” said Nathan West, a local resident who leads the Disaster ReBuilders’ construction work in the area. “We’re going to build 50 homes, have a community garden, and have a playground for kids to play. We’re going to have safe and secure housing.”
A Community Land Trust is a nonprofit model in which the trust owns the land while families own the homes built on it, helping keep housing affordable and preventing speculation that could rapidly drive up housing costs.
That speculation can particularly be a problem in the wake of a natural disaster, but it was another sort of disaster — the Covid pandemic — that first sparked West to consider the concept back in 2020.
“I was researching affordable housing and how to be able to provide it in this area because for someone to move here and buy a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom house, that’s going to cost them a half-million dollars,” West said. “Some people can afford that, but a lot of people cannot.”
CLTs are rare in the United States, with just a few hundred active today, but Helene forced West to revisit the idea.
“One of the things that came up was the fact that a lot of our buildable land didn’t exist anymore,” West said. “At the very least, the 10 feet of soil that was on the land was washed away and bedrock now.”
Land already was expensive in the area before Helene, and the disaster further exacerbated the problem.
“In Western North Carolina, there wasn’t a lot of land affordable and available for a new house here, a new house there, and a new house two miles away kind of thing,” Tucker said. “The number of buildable lots is very few, and any of them that are there are incredibly expensive.”
Fortunately, this 10-acre parcel was owned by someone who was not interested in profiteering from a disaster.
“We just happened to find a parcel in Black Mountain that was 10 acres, and the owner of that property was very willing to work with us because she understood the need for workforce housing and affordable housing in this area, especially after Helene,” West said.
The CLT makes it easier to transform those 10 acres into an affordable neighborhood of safe homes built to Fortified Gold standards.
“It really is an affordable housing option that is in perpetuity,” West said. “With all of the zoning and all of the restrictions and everything that goes with a subdivision and things of that nature, a community land trust makes it a little easier to build in density.”
While there are currently only a few hundred such CLTs in America, both West and Tucker believe there will be — and should be — many more.
“The hope is that we can make it a repeatable model in disaster zones,” West said. “I think it will change the face of disaster response in a lot of areas. We can show this as something that makes sense, something that can help people rebuild in those hard-hit areas, in expensive areas, and areas that they otherwise would have to leave.”
“It’s a really innovative and very important idea,” Tucker said. “Regardless of what happens to the economy, this house will remain affordable basically in perpetuity. We’ll serve Western North Carolina initially, but there’s no reason that we can’t use the same model in Kentucky, Tennessee, or Mississippi. We intend for this to be the first of many.”
West added that this very “community of survivors” could be what inspires a trend.
“I believe we will point to this and be able to say that this is a model that works, we’ve proven it, and it’s time for us to really think about this in the future,” he said. “If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere in this country.”
COMMUNITY LAND TRUST FAQs
What is a Community Land Trust?
A Community Land Trust (CLT) is a nonprofit model where the trust owns the land and families own their homes. Homeowners receive a long-term ground lease (usually 99 years) that allows them to live in and enjoy the blessings of home ownership while keeping the land protected for future generations. This keeps homes affordable and prevents speculation in areas where housing costs might otherwise rise quickly.
Do families still fully own their homes?
Yes. Families hold the title to their home, have a zero-percent-interest mortgage in their name (for Fuller Center homeowner partners), can pass the home to heirs, and build equity as they repay their mortgage. The only difference is that the land remains owned by the nonprofit trust.
How do homeowners in a CLT build equity?
Fuller Center homeowners build equity in two ways:
- Principal repayment — Fuller Center mortgages carry 0% interest, so every payment goes directly toward owning the home.
- Shared appreciation — If the home is sold, the homeowner receives a portion of the home’s increase in value.
This allows families to leave with meaningful financial gain while keeping the home affordable for the next family.
What happens in 99 years?
The 99-year lease is simply a legal structure lenders recognize as long-term ownership. In practice, leases are renewable and transferable to heirs, allowing homes to remain in families for generations.
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