When Robert Dowling accepted the offer Joe Cook and two colleagues extended in 1997 to head 
what would become Community Home Trust, Cook had one and only one directive. He shook hands with Dowling and said, “Don’t screw up.”
And 22 years later, we can testify that Dowling heeded that advice. Having launched the nonprofit that now has 318 permanently affordable homes, Dowling will retire in early January.
A former banker, Dowling had been on a committee that advised the Orange Community Housing Corp., which incorporated in 1990. After he was hired to a paying position, he led the formation of the Community Land Trust in 1999, which sold its first permanently affordable house, using the land trust model, in Carrboro, in 2000. CLT and OCHC merged in 2001 to form the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust. As the organization grew, its name shrank, to Community Home Trust.
Dowling built CHT from scratch without a recipe, learning from mistakes along the way. In 2001, Town Council began asking developers to provide affordable housing in exchange for a rezoning to higher density, and the stock of affordable units increased steadily. CHT has single-family houses, townhouses and condos.
In 2017, CHT bought The Landings, a 58-unit apartment complex in the Winmore development in Carrboro, out of receivership. Over the past two years, CHT has made repairs and other efforts to return the complex to a safe and nice place to live for very low-income tenants. Earlier this year, CHT took on a master lease for five units in Glen Lennox to house people at risk of homelessness.
But last year, Dowling announced he was ready to retire. Our board hired Kimberly Sanchez, a housing lawyer from Florida, and Dowling will help her get acclimated to the community before he hands over the reins on Jan. 10.
Dowling hasn’t made any decisions yet about the next phase of his life. He plans to stay in the neighborhood, though, and he’ll be easy to reach, if Sanchez needs some inside information. Her leadership style will be different, and she’ll have new ideas. I have every confidence she will continue the success that Dowling started.
— Nancy Oates
