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Description
As informal settlements face increasing threats of dispossession, residents, and planners are looking to the Community Land Trust (CLT) model as a tool to promote community control and affordable housing preservation. The Caño Martin Peña Community Land Trust (CMP-CLT) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was the first CLT designed from within an informal settlement in Latin America and has become a beacon model for similar land-based struggles. Miles will discuss some of his research findings that spotlight the role that transformative community organizing canplay in CLT/informal settlement developments, as a tool to strengthen and maintain community control over valuable urban land. Miles will also discuss ways that the CMP-CLT has embraced international solidarity as a way to amplify and bolster social movement progress.
Miles Nowlin has been engaged in affordable housing work for over a decade focusing on participatory development and collective land tenure practices. His drive for this work stems from his housing advocacy and community development work in Shelton, Washington where he coordinated social services for homeless families and children and helped develop increased services for immigrant families and homeless teens. Miles co-founded the Mason County HOST Program, a housing/education program for homeless teens based in the schools that supported them in securing housing, diplomas, and work. He worked as a Housing Cooperative Developer with the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC) in Olympia, Washington, where he led resident homeowners through the purchase and conversion of 5 resident-owned manufactured housing co-ops. He continues to do state policy work at NWCDC, advocating for legislation and state dollars to bolster co-op development. Miles recently completed his MA in Latin American Studies, with a concentration in Environmental Governance, at the University of New Mexico, where his research centered on community control in immigrant-led housing co-ops in the US, and the Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust in Puerto Rico.
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Publication Date
3-9-2023
Recommended Citation
Latin American and Iberian Institute and Miles Nowlin. "Land-Based Organizing in Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust, San Juan, Puerto Rico - A Community Control Model for Informal Settlements in Latin America and Beyond." (2023). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/laii_events/140
