In 2021 the City and County of Sheridan, Wy hired Gruen Guren & Associates to do an “Assessment of Sheridan counties housing needs and strategic policy action recommendations”. From this study it was identified that over 1000 units of housing was needed in Sheridan County. That need has only grown since the boom in real estate from 2022-2023.

Since then boom prices have held steady but the interest rates have increased, thus making a home purchase out of reach for many households in Sheridan County. One of the solutions identified in the Gruen Gruen & Associates assessment was a Housing Land Trust. The City and County then invited Jenny Craft from the Scott Foundation and Christine Dieterich from Habitat for Humanity to come and give their viewpoint on a housing land trust since both non-profit’s had been involved with attainable housing.

Habitat submitted a proposal to the City and County that Habitat could run the housing land trust under the Habitat for Humanity umbrella thus eliminating the need for a new Non-profit and saving those funds to go towards a Housing Land Trust project.

Once the proposal was approved the Sheridan County Attainable Housing Council was formed to oversee the ARPA funds and the approval of a first project for the Housing Land Trust. There was 3 million in ARPA funds allocated to the project and $400K of it was dedicated to the first 3 years of operating expenses for the Housing Land Trust to be incorporated under Habitat’s 5013C and to hire a Housing Land Trust Administrator. The remaining 2.6 million is being disbursed to Stonemill Construction for the Weston Village acreage and infrastructure. There will also be 3 homes donated by Stonmill construction after the infrastructure work is completed.