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Hi! My name is Grace Canny, I am a senior , and for the past school year I’ve been a community fellow at

Common Roots seeks to promote and provide permanently affordable homeownership for those who have been traditionally excluded from homeownership. We operate in Walla Walla and Columbia County, as well as the Milton-Freewater area. Common Roots is a community land trust, an approach to the affordable housing crisis that separates the land from the house on top of it. The land is held in trust, while the home can be resold at a restricted price, though the homeowner can gain value from improvements they have made to the home. Common Roots is run by an executive director, an elected board, and community members. Community land trusts are a growing strategy to combat unaffordable homeownership across the Pacific Northwest, slowly making their way across the region. 

I was initially interested in the position because the housing inequity I saw in Walla Walla mirrored what I saw in my hometown in Maine. Affordable housing in rural and semi-rural towns can be challenging, and since 2020, many small towns have disparate demand and supply. Of course Walla Walla was changing before the pandemic, but here and elsewhere, many locals are priced out of homeownership and rental opportunities. I really appreciate that my fellowship with Common Roots has helped me understand life in Walla Walla, a place very far from where I grew up, as a place that is not so dissimilar from what I know. Part of the role of the Community Fellow Program at Whitman is to burst the Whitman bubble, but I think another value of this experience, at least for me, was bursting the Walla Walla bubble. My community partner organization, as well as many others in this fellowship cycle, focus upon issues in Walla Walla that are representative of the changes that ripple across the U.S. 

As I look forward to my professional career after Whitman, I am incredibly grateful for my experience at . At the beginning of the year I was hesitant to take on another responsibility along with my course load, thesis project, and extracurricular commitments, but I am so glad I had this opportunity. Learning more about strategies to create affordable housing that are growing in the Pacific Northwest has invigorated my interest in policy and land use, which I hope to pursue in Seattle. 

I am very thankful for Abby Juhasz and Jacqueline Erwin as advisors of the Community Fellow Program, and to Miles Nowlin for being a wonderful and compassionate community partner!