Brenda Oertell is the sole bread winner in her household. Oertell’s husband is disabled and can’t work. At the Skagit Community Action Agency, she helps homeless people find places to live while she scrapes together what little savings she can so she can buy her own home eventually.

“We’re always just one paycheck away from the people we’re serving,” Oertell said.

Oertell is one of 10 people on a list for a new program meant to help working people making less than the median income purchase a home. Community Action has helped launch the program, which will eventually operate as a separate agency.

The list of prospective homeowners is made up of the few people who have heard about the new program, called the Home Trust of Skagit County, and who hope to be the first to qualify for subsidized homeownership through the trust.

The Home Trust fills in the gap between the mortgage someone like Oertell can afford and the actual cost of the home. After the sale, the Home Trust retains the land and the homeowner commits to selling the home to another seller at an affordable rate. The process is still being determined by the freshly appointed board of directors, but will pattern itself after existing community land trusts.

The project has been two years in the making at the Community Action Agency, which announced the idea of starting the first community land trust for Skagit County in 2007. Now the group has $100,000 in grant money from the Paul G. Allen Foundation, a handful of other donations and a board of directors. The program is on its way from being a single-staffed program in Community Action to an independent nonprofit agency.

“The thought always has been that Community Action could help in birthing this thing,” said Bill Henkel, executive director of Community Action. “We’ll support it administratively as long as they need us to. It can break off in the future if it’s ready to do that.”

With $100,000 from the Paul G. Allen Foundation, Henkel was able to hire Kari Russom to jumpstart the program and work on property acquisition. Russom is working to establish the organization as its own nonprofit, which will continue to operate out of Community Action’s offices.

It’s just the newest of many such agencies across the country and patterning itself closely after the two nearest community land trusts, in Bellingham and Orcas Island.

“It’s a new idea locally, but it’s been going on across the country,” Russom said.

In Bellingham, the Kulshan Community Land Trust has purchased or developed 84 homes since its inception in 1999. The organization operates mainly through purchasing existing homes with new home buyers and retaining the land.

On Orcas Island, the OPAL Community Land Trust — OPAL stands for “Of People And Land” — has developed 77 homes in its 20 years of existence.

OPAL staff say the goal is to find permanent homes for people who are working but can’t afford a mortgage. They both said the new home owners enhance the community in a positive way.

“It has made a significant difference in retaining diversity of economics and diversity of people,” said Lisa Byers, executive director of OPAL. “It seems to build a real sense of connected and rootedness to the island. When they don’t have to be worried about their housing, they can be more engaged in civic life.”

Russom agreed and added that children benefit from having a stable home and community, rather than moving between rentals and school districts. She said children in school will benefit through better academic success.

“To succeed, you need a place to call home,” Russom said. “It’s only fair that everybody has a safe, decent place to live.”

Paul Schissler, executive director of Kulshan, said without land trusts most of these people would continue to live in rentals or outside of the community.

“Many people who work in our communities are not able to afford to live in our communities,” Schissler said. “By far there’s a shortage of affordable homes.”

Also, the gap between what people earn versus the cost of a home has almost doubled in the past decade.

In 1999, the median income for a Skagit County family was $45,400, which rose to $61,300 in 2009 — a growth of 35 percent. According to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, the median cost of a Skagit County home in 1999 was $182,200. That cost climbed to $299,950 this year.

That widened the gap between income and home prices from $137,000 in 1999 to $238,650 this year.

Even with a recent drop in home prices, income growth has not matched the growth in housing prices.

Oertell knows the difficulties of home buying. She and her husband Ralph purchased a home in 2000, only to sell it eight years later and lose all of the equity they made on it. They had to sell to be able to take care of Oertell’s mother-in-law in California. The growth in the value of the home didn’t match up with their payments, making the process a wash.

When they returned, they did not have the down payment needed for a new home.

Oertell’s not sure if she’ll qualify for whatever program Skagit County develops. But she wants a home she can paint and a yard for a garden.

“It’s the freedom to have your own patch of land to call your own,” Oertell said.

But she’s also prepared to not qualify, if the program focuses more on new homeowners.

“Even if that doesn’t come to fruition, it’s going to help the next person behind me,” Oertell said.

At Community Action, Henkel hopes the program can help the national housing crisis. He wants to have a program within the Housing Trust to assist families who fall into foreclosure.

“Frankly, I wish it was part of the federal dialogue of foreclosures,” Henkel said. “In some cases, that might be a neat solution to say, ‘Here’s a way to fix your woes.’ The very real benefit is you get to keep your home.”

Schissler said the benefit to the land trust, whether the home is built or purchased, is securing a home in perpetuity.

“We have the pleasure of knowing that house is affordable for the next buyer without additional subsidy,” Schissler said.

n Aaron Burkhalter can be reached at 360-416-2141 or .