Community-Owned Land. Affordable Homes. Thriving Neighborhoods
A Place to Put Down Roots
Our mission is to cultivate a network of cooperative spaces across many neighborhoods that nurture healthy, sustaining relationships among people and the land. Through these spaces, we encourage learning and sharing practical skills such as gardening, cooking and food preservation, environmental stewardship, and pathways to affordable homeownership.
Land in Trust. Homes for Generations
Hawthorn Housing Land Trust is a grassroots, resident-led, nonprofit organization dedicated to holding and stewarding land for the long-term benefit of the Boxtown and Jacobsville neighborhoods in Evansville, Indiana. Our model centers on three core values—land, trust, and community—which guide how land is cared for, shared, and protected for current and future residents.
Our goal is to provide permanently affordable housing for low-income residents, marginalized communities, and immigrant families through a resale-restricted community land trust model. This approach promotes community control over development while supporting homeownership, responsible land stewardship, long-term affordability, and the prevention of displacement.
Hawthorn Housing Land Trust holds land in trust in ways that ensure homes remain affordable for future generations while also strengthening the ecological health of the neighborhood. The greenspaces we steward help protect habitats for wildlife and native plants, support community gardens and agroforestry, expand native tree canopy to cool urban temperatures, reduce air pollution, and contribute to climate resilience.
Land
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
Trust
Trust is built through mutual experiences—through shared work, shared care, and a shared commitment to the future.
Community
There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.
“Land should not be treated as a commodity, but as a community to which we all belong.”
— Aldo Leopold
