For nearly 30 years, Yellow Springs Home, Inc., has worked to strengthen community and diversity by providing permanently affordable and sustainable housing through its community land trust. Headquartered in Yellow Springs, the nonprofit organization serves the entire Dayton Region through the development of attainable housing and client-first programs that offer home repairs, homebuyer coaching, post-purchase support and more.
Read about Yellow Springs Home, Inc., and its collaborative efforts to bring “Affordable Homes for Generations!” to Greater Dayton in this Q&A by Executive Director Emily Seibel.
Yellow Springs Home, Inc., has been in operation since 1998. Why are your services now more important than ever?
Affordable housing is an urgent and growing crisis. In 2025, more than 15,000 households in Dayton were paying more than 30 percent of their income toward rent, with nearly 4,400 households on waiting lists for rentals. Currently, a housing shortage of nearly 8,000 units of for-sale and rental housing persists. The community land trust is a means of preserving affordability on community-governed land in perpetuity while supporting residents. As a result, Home, Inc., has not had a single foreclosure since its founding.
For many, homeownership seems like a far-off or impossible dream. In addition, many homeowners, especially older adults on fixed incomes, struggle to afford costly repairs, which can affect their health, safety, accessibility and ultimately their ability to remain in their homes. The CLT model removes barriers to first-time homeownership and outperforms the market with sustained post-purchase support for homeowner success. This lasting solution provides affordable housing not only to initial homebuyers or renters, but long after the compliance periods end as part of the CLT, which is governed democratically by members and constituents. By growing our home repair program, we are addressing these challenges head-on in collaboration with the members of the Dayton Home Repair Network.
What changes are you looking to implement or programs are you looking to build upon?
In early 2025, Home, Inc., was invited by local organizations to bring the CLT model to the entire Dayton Region. The Dayton Foundation’s Del Mar Encore Fellows Initiative has been central to this work. We are laying the groundwork for the CLT to come to Dayton and are excited to see this powerful, community-driven model put into action to serve its residents and neighborhoods for generations to come. Our work in Dayton is driven by partnerships, collaboration and bringing in resources to pour into the region.
Home, Inc., also is growing our home repair program. What started as a single home repair in 2018 has grown into a robust program serving local residents. In 2026 alone, we are working to deploy over $1 million in home repairs through partnerships with CityWide Development Corporation, Dayton Energy Collaborative, Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati, Huntington Bank, the Village of Yellow Springs and other key partners. We are grateful to coordinate with groups dedicated to home repairs in the Dayton Region. More than 1,900 households are currently on waiting lists for home repairs, which is more than any one organization can tackle alone.
Recent grants awarded from Dayton Foundation funds to your organization include a $25,000 discretionary grant to help build eight units of affordable senior housing in Yellow Springs. How do gifts like these help you help others?
Gifts like these are an investment in permanently affordable housing and help to leverage additional funding. Phase I of The Cascades, an award-winning housing project, is now complete and fully leased. The Dayton Foundation’s grant showed local buy-in and support while helping to leverage more than $2.3 million from nine sources in total. All units are part of the CLT and will serve generations of older adults with affordable, safe and community-oriented housing. Phase 2 fundraising is underway, and we are excited to break ground on an additional nine units in the coming months. In total, The Cascades project will serve 32 low- to moderate-income households. We are deeply grateful to The Dayton Foundation and its donors for this community support.
What are your most important needs right now? How can the community support them?
We are increasing in scale, breadth and impact through The Cascades project, home repairs and bringing the CLT model to Dayton. Our most important need is support for our growth and capacity.
Individuals who are interested in supporting Home, Inc., can do so in a variety of ways.
- Direct a gift through your fund at The Dayton Foundation to support our capacity.
- Consider becoming a member by donating today at yshome.org/donate.
- Contact us if you are interested in volunteering for an event, a project, administrative work or anything else!
- Take volunteering a step further by reaching out to us to learn about our Board of Trustees and committees.
- Contact us anytime with questions, ideas or feedback at info@yshome.org or (937) 767-2790.
- Connect us with people or organizations we should know.
- Sign up for our newsletter at https://www.yshome.org/emaillist to learn about upcoming events and ways to get involved.
- Follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram and YouTube).
- Please don’t hesitate to spread the word about our mission!