HCVs to Homeownership Cohort
In the HCVs to Homeownership Cohort, participants will learn about leveraging land banks and HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Program to create homeownership opportunities for low-income renters in their community.
Affordable homeownership continues to be vital for family stability and wealth creation. Our recent survey data shows that over 70 percent of land banks are currently engaged in or planning to engage in creating affordable housing in the next three years. To meet this growing demand, land banks need innovative strategies that leverage existing resources.
Community Progress is launching the HCVs to Homeownership Cohort to improve land banks’ capacity to add homeownership opportunities through strategic partnership with HUD's Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program.
The HCVs to Homeownership Cohort is made possible by generous funding from the Prudential Foundation.
Key Dates
Letter of Interest Solicitation Issued: January 22, 2026
Deadline to Submit Letters of Interest: February 24, 2026
Learning Cohort Members Selected: March 6, 2026
Learning Cohort Educational Series: May–August 2026
Background
Homeownership is a proven path to building personal and generational wealth. Because communities face an intensifying housing affordability crisis, making the dream of homeownership come true is challenging. Low-income families find it increasingly difficult to afford even the most basic entry costs of homeownership, such as monthly mortgage payments and down payments.
Land banks can play an important role in addressing the need for affordable homeownership opportunities. Nearly all communities, including those with large inventories of vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties, have a shortage of quality, affordable homes to meet their residents’ needs and incomes. In the 2025 National Land Bank Network survey, over 70 percent of land banks reported they engage in creating affordable housing or are planning to in the next three years.
The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program is the nation's largest tenant-based housing assistance program, serving 2.3 million households. It is administered by HUD and local public housing agencies. Within HCV is a Homeownership Option, which permits the voucher holder to redirect the monthly payment from rent toward a mortgage and other costs.
However, this long-standing public program is vastly underutilized by local administrators of the HCV program. Since 2015, there have been just over 12,000 homeownership closings despite the program demonstrating great success and historically low foreclosure rates.
Land banks—experts in transforming vacant properties—have incredible potential to work with local agencies that administer the HCV Program and other key partners to help local voucher holders transition from low-income renters to first-time homebuyers.
The Power of Partnership: The Newark Land Bank (NLB) Model
This learning cohort is built around the work of the Newark Land Bank (NLB), which has a first-of-its-kind program leveraging the HCV Homeownership Option.
The Opportunity: The HCV Program is the nation's largest tenant-based housing assistance program. While it serves 2.3 million households, only about 10,000 voucher holders currently become homebuyers annually, indicating tremendous, untapped potential for scaling this model across the country.
The NLB Model: Since 2022, thanks to generous support from the Prudential Foundation and technical assistance from Community Progress, NLB successfully established key partnerships with their local public housing authority and a nonprofit mortgage lender.
The Impact: To date, this program has successfully supported 15 first-time homebuyers by converting rental vouchers to homeownership, utilizing a powerful strategy that includes:
- Converting rental vouchers to homeownership financing;
- Rehabilitating land bank properties for homebuyer acquisition; and
- Offering targeted credit counseling and support.
About the Learning Cohort
Who can participate?
Community Progress will select 10 interested communities to participate in the learning cohort. Selected communities will be able to designate up to eight individuals to participate in the learning cohort. Participation should include representatives from:
- Land bank
- Local government
- Housing authority, public housing agency (PHA), or entity responsible for administering HCVs
- Other partners, like lenders, tenant advocates, and philanthropic organizations
What will you learn?
By participating in this cohort, you will:
- Learn from peers how to structure and formalize effective partnerships between land banks and local public housing authorities.
- Put each agency’s strengths to work to serve first-time homebuyers and increase the use of the HCV Homeownership option in your community.
- Gain actionable tools to adapt the NLB's successful model to your local community.
What does the program involve?
HCVs to Homeownership Cohort participants will join four webinars (approximately 90 minutes each) led by the Newark partners. Community Progress staff will be available for up to two coaching calls with each delegation to help brainstorm the challenges and opportunities of local replication.
The minimum commitment from individual participants is approximately 8 hours. At the conclusion of the cohort, you will be able to identify the key components to replicate a successful HCV homeownership program with your community partners.
Application Instructions
We welcome applications from land banks, local governments, and public housing agencies interested in developing a program to leverage vacant properties and HCVs to create homeownership opportunities for low-income renters.
Please apply by submitting a brief letter of interest to [email protected] by the deadline, February 24, 2026. The letter should be no more than two pages.
In the letter, please include:
- The reason for your interest in the program.
- A summary of your community’s vacant, abandoned, and deteriorating property challenges that could be leveraged for the program.
- A description of past, current, or planned collaborations between land banks and housing authorities in your community including challenges and successes. If this will be the first step towards collaboration, please describe how that came about.
- A description of the use of housing choice vouchers in your community. For example, to what extent are vouchers used for rental vs homeownership assistance?
- What you hope to gain from this experience.
- A preliminary roster of your delegation with names, titles, organizations, and email addresses. Each delegation can have a maximum of eight (8) participants.
- The name of a designated point who will serve as the delegation lead and the reason for designating this individual.
Land banks, local housing authorities, and local governments that serve the same area are required to jointly submit one letter of interest.
Questions?
Community Progress encourages interested entities to reach out with any questions before preparing a Letter of Interest. Please direct any questions to Carolina Rodriguez, Associate Director of Technical Assistance, at [email protected].