Clients and Testimonials

Community Land Trusts

Kristin helps community land trust clients create, develop and steward permanently affordable homes, farms, commercial and community spaces for people facing barriers to ownership and wealth building.

A sample of CLT clients are below

  • Proud Ground, Portland, OR

  • Webster Groves Community Land Trust, St. Louis, MO

  • Madison Area Community Land Trust, Madison, WI

  • Human Resources Development Council, Bozeman, MT

  • Sitka Community Land Trust, Sitka, AK

Consulting Clients

Kristin consults with municipal governments, think tanks, universities and national organizations on social housing programs and legislative advocacy.

She has served as a consultant to the International Center for Community Land Trusts (formerly the Center for CLT Innovation), the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, the Vermont Law and Graduate School's Center for Agriculture and Food Systems and other organizations; a sample is listed below.

  • Portland, OR

    Provide legal and consultive services related to community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, and other alternative homeownership models, and social housing. Inform the City’s study of social housing.

  • Orlando, FL

    Research the 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico’s shared equity housing laws, regulations and funding policies and compile a policy mapping resource for a study funded by Freddie Mac.

  • New York, NY

    Corporate counsel for Client’s dealings with the New York City Attorney’s Office; drafted a proposed bill for the NY State legislature to define and enable community land trusts; providing legal briefs to the City Attorney’s Office.

  • Madison, WI

    Created U.S. State Law database of shared equity ownership laws. Convened a Legal Collaborative of law school clinical faculty to discuss curriculum development.

  • “Kristin’s expert legal analysis and guidance on community land trusts and shared equity models was an important part of our citywide project. Her national and international scholarship in the field helped to deepen our team’s understanding and shape the project’s final recommendations. Kristin is highly sought after for good reason – she is responsive, professional, insightful, and committed to supporting resident agency, equitable ownership, and community wealth building opportunities. Kristin would be a strong and qualified addition to any team. Her participation would result in creating collaborative opportunities for education, scholarship, and attorneys with specialized knowledge to increase CLTs and shared equity models across our nation and beyond.”

    Jennifer C., Portland Housing Bureau

  • "Our community land trust policy and education organization has worked with Kristin for several years, looking to her as a trusted source of knowledge and expertise on the legal aspects of community land trust operation. Most recently, we subcontracted Kristin to perform a comprehensive analysis of shared equity and community land trust state-level laws and enabling policies and programs of all 50 United States. This project was an expansion on her previous work compiling shared equity policies into a publicly available hub. Not only did she systematically parse through complex information sources, she also triangulated that data with personal outreach to organizations operating in those states to ground-truth her findings. Kristin King-Ries is thorough, thoughtful, and a leader in the community land trust law space with a clear vision of what needs to be done to improve and proliferate the use of these important affordable housing tools."

    Dayna L., Florida Housing Coalition