CDI cited in article on cooperative solutions for senior living

See "Cooperative Living for Seniors (and others)" on The Little Old Lady Stays Put (or doesn't), by Jacqueline Herships.

Press release: Homeowners purchase 200-site North Adams park; join Mass. trend of resident-owned manufactured home communities

For Immediate Release


May 2, 2013

Wheel Estates Tenants Association Inc. 

Homeowners purchase 200-site North Adams park; 

join Mass. trend of resident-owned manufactured home communities 

Contacts: 

Andy Danforth, Housing Program Director, CDI (401) 439-9795
Michael Sloss, Managing Director, ROC USA® Capital: (202) 595-2690
Paul Bradley, President, ROC USA, LLC (603) 856-0709

North Adams, Mass. – Homeowners in this 200-home manufactured housing community took a big step toward securing their financial futures when they collectively bought their neighborhood as a resident corporation this week. 

The Wheel Estates Tenants Association Board of Directors said that while complex, the purchase process went more smoothly than they anticipated.

“It was hard work but it was all worth it,” board members wrote in a prepared statement. “The board is dedicated to the growth of our community with the support of our residents to put our best efforts into enhancing the community.”

The resident association purchased the community May 2 for $2.65 million with assistance from the Cooperative Development Institute. CDI is a certified technical assistance provider with ROC USA® Network, a national non-profit organization that works to help residents of for-sale mobile home parks form cooperatives and buy their communities. Technical assistance will continue to be provided by CDI to the association for the length of the mortgage — a minimum of 10 years.

In addition to a first mortgage that covered the purchase price, ROC USA Capital also provided a construction loan of up to $ 1.1 million to address infrastructure upgrades.

Wheel Estates is the sixth Massachusetts community supported by ROC USA Network. CDI and ROC USA helped more than 450 homeowners in two Carver communities purchase their parks in June and 66 homeowners in Plymouth in February. In these democratic associations, homeowners in the community each buy one low-cost membership interest. Each household has one vote on matters of the community. The members elect a Board of Directors to act on day-to-day issues and vote as a membership on larger matters like the annual budget, by-laws and community rules.

Andy Danforth, Director of CDI’s New England Resident Owned Communities (NEROC) Program, noted the extra challenge of for the first time working in a city with rent control ordinances. He joined the Wheel Estates board members in praising the efforts of city officials to accommodate a new model of community ownership.

“The city rent control board developed, in a matter of only three weeks, a new policy and rent adjustment application for resident-owned communities, and a new rent based upon resident member vote, contingent upon their purchase,” Danforth said.

Community owner Bob Morgan said selling to the residents was like any conventional sale.

“The transaction involved all the normal things, no surprises,” Morgan said. “Andy did a great job.”

Financing for the project came from ROC USA Capital. ROC USA Capital is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ROC USA and a U.S. Department of Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution.

ROC USA Capital Managing Director Michael Sloss pointed to the community’s prime location, with sweeping views of the Berkshires, hundreds of undeveloped hillside acres, the abutting Savoy Mountain State Forest and easy access to shopping, schools and more.

“We’re excited to meet both the community acquisition and community improvement needs with our financing,” said Sloss, noting that a significant portion of ROC USA Capital’s loan is targeted to water, sewer and road improvements. “The preservation of the homes in Wheel Estates through affordable, fixed-rate community financing will have lasting impact in North Adams.”

Cooperative ownership of mobile home parks as a way of preserving affordable communities is a priority for several national non-profit organizations that in 2008 formed ROC USA to make resident-owned communities viable nationwide. ROC USA is sponsored by the Ford Foundation, NeighborWorks® America, NCB Capital Impact, the Corporation for Enterprise Development, and the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund.

ROC USA is a non-profit organization with a national network of eight organizations such as CDI and a national financing source for resident-owned communities. “We solve the two basic barriers to resident ownership – access to expert technical assistance and financing to help homeowners become buyers when their community is for sale,” said Paul Bradley, ROC USA’s founding president.

ROC USA Network has helped 46 communities preserve nearly 3,200 homes in 13 states since its launch in May 2008. www.rocusa.org

The Cooperative Development Institute is a regional cooperative development center, founded in 1994, which has assisted dozens of new and existing cooperatives throughout New England and New York. It is involved in cooperative housing as well as agriculture, consumer, worker-owner, energy, and fishing cooperatives. For rural senior co-op development, CDI received support from the Cooperative Development Foundation. www.cdi.coop

This is the 10th resident corporation purchase for CDI in 29 months, with six in Massachusetts, three in Vermont and one in Maine.

Brunswick park becomes co-op: press

This article ran this week in the Coastal Journal, distributed from Freeport to Camden and inserted in the Portland Press Herald.

http://www.coastaljournal.com/website/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3935:brunswick-mobile-home-park-purchased-by-residents&catid=58:regional-news&Itemid=100070

Nice work, NEROC!

CDI places article in Jewish Currents on Cooperatives

CDI Executive Director Noemi Giszpenc contributed an article to the Autumn 2012 issue of Jewish Currents, entitled "Cooperatives: The (Jewish) World's Best-Kept Secret". It has interviews with CFNE's Micha Josephy and Rebecca Dunn of Cooperative Fund of New England, Richard Dines of Credit Union National Association, Jenny Silverman of DotCommCoop (and lately of Red Sun Press), Yoni Landau and Dan Spitzer of CoFed (Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive), and Deanne Dworski-Riggs who interned with the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Thanks to all for participating!

Op-Ed: Cooperatives could benefit Maine residents

Our own Rob Brown has written a great Op-Ed for the Bangor Daily News for Co-op Month, highlighting the benefits that Resident Ownership through cooperatives could bring to people living in manufactured home parks in Maine.
Check it out:
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/10/11/opinion/how-trailer-park-cooperatives-could-benefit-maine/

ROC USA on All Things Considered (NPR)

The NH public radio story that aired last week has now hit the national airwaves on NPR's All Things Considered: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/02/151863518/home-sweet-mobile-home-co-ops-deliver-ownership. We'd like to point out that we are working day and night to help the community referred to in the first part of the story, in Carver, MA, to buy their park. Here's hoping that they can achieve peace of mind along with all of the other Resident Owned Communities being assisted by ROC USA!

"Don't Let 'Em Go! How co-ops can keep vital businesses, services in rural communities"

In the current (Sept/Oct) issue of USDA's Rural Cooperatives magazine, a salute to noteworthy co-ops in celebration of National (and International!) Cooperative Month includes an article by Noemi Giszpenc on converting existing businesses to co-op ownership in rural communities. The article features the Old Creamery Co-op, Crown O'Maine Organic Co-op, Turtle Ridge Cooperative, ROC USA, and Maine Organic Milling, all examples of people cooperating to keep needed institutions and make sure they are serving their communities. See page 30 for the article, and browse the other great stories in this special Co-op Month issue.

Passion Makes Vision a Reality for Many Communities: 2011 Together on the Land Tour

Northampton, MA– The third annual Together on the Land Tour visited blighted urban properties being rehabilitated by the Holyoke Community Land Trust, a resident owned manufactured housing park in Ware, a successful co-housing development in Northampton, an organic farm in Granby tackling long-term farm affordability and green community-built housing in Amherst.

What do these places have in common? A vision and the passion to make that vision a reality.

The hard work of the pioneers at each tour stop was self evident. In Ware, residents of a manufactured housing park came together to raise $1.1 million to buy their park from their landlord so that profits from rents could be invested in their community, not sent out of state. This vision became a reality because of the passion of their volunteer resident board of directors and the technical assistance of the Cooperative Development Institute. Oakwood has been transformed to the Quabbin Sunrise Cooperative.

That same passion that encourages the residents at Quabbin Sunrise to work for free on behalf of their community was evident at each tour stop. The farmers at Red Fire Farm have built a successful organic vegetable farm in Granby, but want their passion for farming to take root. They are purchasing additional farm land in Montague with the assistance of Mount Grace Land Trust so that they don't have to rely on year-to-year leases on fields in Granby. And permanent farm affordability restrictions will ensure the next farmer has the chance to do the same.

The tour was an opportunity to learn more about the challenges of living communnally, establishing whole farm affordability, creating cooperatives and building homes with volunteer labor and much more. A program from the tour with resources is available online at www.vclt.org/tour2011.

Photo Credit: Laura Mason – all photos from 9/11/11 Together on the Land Tour

2011 Tour Co-sponsored by:

Cooperative Development Institute, Co-op Power, Equity Trust,

Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust & Valley Community Land Trust

2011 Media Sponsor: The Valley Advocate

2011 Special Thanks to Collective Copies and River Valley Market for their in-kind donations

Fall Issue of Networks, newsletter of Cooperation Works!

The Fall 2011 issue of the Networks newsletter is out -- check out the great work that cooperative developers are doing throughout the U.S.

Happy Co-op Month 2011!

October is National Co-op Month -- an opportunity to celebrate, educate, and communicate about co-ops. Check out the online toolkit. What are you doing this month?

Cooperative Maine is publishing op-eds and releasing an update to its directory, Stronger Together. See maine.find.coop for a preview.

The Neighboring Food Co-op Association is encouraging everyone to join their local food co-op and credit union and shop for co-op products.

Northeast CT co-ops are sponsoring a benefit concert to raise development funds for a group of nascent cooperatives in the region.

Cooperative Development Institute has published an article on converting enterprises to co-ops in Rural Cooperatives magazine (see PDF doc, page 30-31), featuring the Old Creamery Co-op, as well as Crown O'Maine Organic Co-op, Turtle Ridge Cooperative, Maine Organic Milling, and the ROC-USA program.

We are also participating in preparations for the launch of the International Year of Cooperatives 2012 at the United Nations in NYC at the end of October. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for co-ops to increase awareness, promote growth, and advocate for appropriate government policies. Start making your plans!

NYT article features CDI work with Manufactured Home Park Co-ops

In today's New York Times, Loren Berlin published "At More Mobile-Home Parks, a Greater Sense of Security", a look at the growing movement for residents of manufactured home parks to form nonprofit cooperatives that purchase and manage the operations of the parks in which they live. The Cooperative Development Institute is proud to be a certified technical assistance provider with the ROC USA Network, which is spearheading a nation-wide initiative to secure such resident-owned communities. Our New England Resident Owned Communities program, begun in Fall 2009, has already helped one park convert to resident-ownership, and is working with Wamsutta, the park in North Attleboro, MA featured in the NYT article, to complete their purchase this Spring. There are hundreds of manufactured home parks throughout New England, housing thousands of largely lower-income individuals and families, and apart from New Hampshire, where the ROC concept was launched, very few are currently resident-owned. Resident-ownership ensures that the land remains in use as a manufactured home park, keeps lot rents from increasing too much over time, and gives residents a direct say in park maintenance and infrastructure.

For more information on how residents can form a cooperative to purchase and manage their park, or for information on the benefits to park owners of selling to residents, contact our housing program manager, Andy Danforth, at adanforth@cdi.coop or 401-439-9795.

Photo: Alice Sadoski, resident of Wamsutta Mobile Home Park
Photo credit: Erik Jacobs for the New York Times