Minot has made a good decision in encouraging low-income workers to strive to become homeowners.

Yes, there are plenty of low-income properties to rent, and there will always be a need for those – sometimes a great need. But assisting an individual or a family to own a home rather than rent a house or an apartment is good for everyone.

There are no stats to back up the claim, but we feel a homeowner is going to be more inclined to properly maintain the property, and will make improvements faster than a rental company would. Homeowners, we feel, are more inclined to remain in the community because they feel they have a greater stake in it. Home ownership, afterall, is still the American dream.

As we reported earlier this week, since putting its first home on the market in the fall of 2014, Minot Community Land Trust has helped three lower income buyers become homeowners while assisting several others in moving in that direction.

Now the organization is ready to expand its inventory, and the Minot City Council agreed to help make that happen.

A $2 million grant from the City of Minot’s National Disaster Resilience Program would enable the CLT to rehabilitate six properties and construct four more homes over two years to provide 10 single-family homes.

The program does have its detractors as do most efforts to give a handup to people. So be it.

CLT appears to be a success story now, and we think it will only improve over the years. Why so optimistic? Hey, you don’t knock the American dream, you endorse it.