Land Trusts’ First Home – A New Beginning

This update was provided by the Housing and Community Resources Department's own Benjamin Baggett.

In several months, the Lincoln Community Land Trust will make available it’s very first affordable home in Lincoln County. The house, located at 2219 NE 28th Street in Lincoln City, will be available to a well deserving and qualified family. With four bedrooms, a two car garage, and plenty of yard space it would serve even a larger family well. The property also comes with an accessory dwelling for additional living area. It’s location on a wooded lot provides safe outdoor recreation for children as well.

The purchase is made possible by Neighborhood Stabilization Funds and assistance from the Lincoln City government. While there are still a few weeks until closing, there are no anticipated delays after the purchase contract was signed. The land trust plans to make needed improvements on the home well before the first family arrives. This may include repairs to roof, and some interior renovation.

Once ready, the land trust will prepare to sell the home to a qualified family. The homebuyer will be responsible for the loan as in a normal purchase. However, the benefit offered by the land trust to achieve affordability is to reduce the amount to be paid for the home. To do so, the land trust retaining ownership of the land, removes that from the cost of the property. The homeowner is only responsible for the home purchase and even that is sold at a reduced rate. An effective model in now over 200 land trusts across the United States, and popular in the Northwest, this is the first step in making affordable home ownership possible in Lincoln County.

The land trust has much work to do to put their planning into action. Formed in 2008,the land trust board has steadily planned its way to this day. With the mission of providing affordable homes to working individuals and families in Lincoln County, it is close to making it a reality. This event hopefully marks the beginning of many to come, as the land trust board and volunteers work to provide affordable home ownership opportunities in Lincoln County.

Letter Carriers Food Drive Results

Corvallis volunteers (photo left) are sorting food at the CSC parking in Corvallis where it was dropped off by letter carriers while Albany volunteers (photo right) sort their bags of food on the post office dock in Albany. All the food is loaded into totes and transported to the Linn Benton Food Share warehouse in Tangent.

The Albany, Corvallis, and Lebanon postal employees really delivered for this year's National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive on May 8th. These generous men and women, with the help of many community volunteers, brought in 68,086 pounds of food and $300 in cash from their communities. CSC and Linn Benton Food Share send thanks to everyone for contributing their food, time, and money and a special thank you to our local letter carriers.

Albany Pounds: 29,014
Lebanon Pounds: 11,060
Corvallis Pounds: 28,012 Cash: $300
Total Converted 71,086

Nation-wide, the Food collected for charities in the mail carriers annual food drive has passed a billion pounds.

The National Association of Letter Carriers said results from just over 400 union branches across the country show last Saturday's "Stamp Out Hunger" drive collected 19.7 million pounds of food for donation to local food banks. That means that in the 18 years it has been operating the mail carriers have collected more than 1 billion pounds of food.