5) Description of housing product/service offering: Since 1984, the NH Community Loan Fund (the “Loan Fund”) has empowered owners of manufactured homes through technical assistance and access to capital, and built a statewide system for cooperative ownership as a permanent solution to the problems of owning a home on rented land.

The Loan Fund is the primary architect of the cooperative development infrastructure that has helped more than 4,900 families buy the land beneath their homes. A total of 79 Resident Owned Communities (ROCs) now exist in the state (18% of the state’s total parks). It is a market-based solution to a long-standing problem.

The Loan Fund’s sectoral strategy for manufactured housing addresses the significant problems in the industry— stubbornly rooted in its origins as travel trailers—that continue to undermine manufactured housing as a secure source of affordable housing. Our approach is a three- pronged effort to offer: · Long-term control over the land · Good quality, energy efficient homes · Fair and conventional financing products

The Loan Fund provides educational and technical assistance to help homeowners assess the purchase of their community. We also provide subordinate financing that helps the residents secure a senior position loan from a local bank. The Loan Fund assists in securing grants and low-cost debt for necessary rehab as well as provides technical assistance throughout the life of the loan.

Our Cooperative Home Loan Program provides fair financing to homeowners in cooperatives, who are often stuck paying for sub-prime and predatory mortgages. In less than three years, the Cooperative Home Loan Program has made 288 loans totaling $11.6 million.

The Loan Fund is now pioneering the use of these homes as a new affordable housing resource through Resident Owned Communities USA (ROC USA). Essentially, we are taking an oft-dismissed housing stock and zoning ordinance to demonstrate how it can be used to produce reasonable, affordable homeownership.

6) Description of innovation: 1) Land Ownership. By owning the land and working together, residents can control the rents, repair the infrastructure, and have a renewed sense of place and security. Risks of park closure are effectively eliminated. Once purchased, residents can start addressing neglected infrastructure and environmental problems such as waste disposal, leaking underground oil tanks, and providing safe water.

2) Access to Financing. While manufactured housing has been a homeownership option for lower income people for the last 50 years, the market is saturated with high-interest, sub-prime and predatory mortgages. Significant market-based changes, including financing, are needed to make manufactured housing affordable and stable long-term. The Loan Fund’s Cooperative Home Loan Program addresses this through providing reasonable interest rates on mortgages and replacement homes.

3) Leadership Development. The Cooperative Leadership Development Program is an educational program designed to increase civic engagement and strengthen communities by connecting and educating leaders of resident-owned manufactured housing communities. The program, now entering its second year, helps participants explore the issues and challenges critical to manufactured housing communities, the towns in which they live, and the state. Participants also learn speaking skills, meeting management and handling conflict, skills that are helpful in running a cooperative community, dealing with town matters or at work. Training topics include: legal, local and state government, infrastructure, finance and insurance, and leadership.

4) Community Rehabilitation. This program involves helping new and old cooperatives with professional engineering assessments to evaluate the environmental and infrastructure conditions of resident owned parks. In addition, we help residents secure financing to make repairs, often through Community Development Block Grants.

7) Benefits to clients: The Loan Fund’s Manufactured Housing Park Program is delivered directly to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods through trainers that help organize parks into cooperatives—and help leaders run their communities effectively. An expert team of seven practitioners works fulltime to ensure co-ops ongoing success. Staff spends more than 6,000 training hours a year on-site in co-ops. These development hours include time spent for organizing and outreach, conversion services, management training services, outreach to isolated groups, training events, project development and implementation, system-building activities with outside resources, etc.

The Loan Fund has loan counselors in the field to help provide fair financing to those paying exorbitant interest rates (which is common in the industry), and assisting with housing replacements when necessary. The Loan Fund publishes The Cooperator, a quarterly magazine providing practical information to all 4,900 households. In addition, the Loan Fund works with MOTA, or Manufactured Homeowners and Tenants Association.

For the national plan, ROC USA (Resident Owned Communities USA) will work through local nonprofits to fulfill critical needs. ROC USA staff is actively promoting and advocating through speaking, writing, sharing resources, and engaging the field. Technical assistance is provided in a variety of ways, including on-site visits in various states, as well as the annual Meredith Institute, a national conference on manufactured housing. These services have included guidance to planning groups on policy, program and resource development as well as project specific technical assistance for project feasibility and business planning.

8) Key operational partnerships: 1) Land ownership. The primary partnership is with banks and residents of cooperatives. 2) Access to Financing. We work with banks and the NH Housing Finance Authority. 3) Leadership Development. We work with the leaders of resident owned communities. 4) Community Rehabilitation. We work with USDA/Rural Development and Community Development Block Grants.

Banking and finance partnerships, such as NH Housing Finance Authority, are critical for the debt/financing to make cooperative homeownership possible. Additional partners are also found through numerous foundations that have supported this work over the years, including the Ford Foundation and the Fannie Mae Foundation.

9) Financial model: Low-income homeowners in manufactured parks are able to purchase the land beneath their homes through leveraging private capital. The Loan Fund often provides subordinated debt financing, which helps resident owned communities secure a senior loan position from a bank. In the nonprofit sector, there are high expectations around health and safety. Through engineering assessments, which helps assess the environmental and infrastructure needs of their parks, residents have been able to access Community Development Block Grants. Resident owned communities in NH have accessed $12.2 million in CDBG funds to purchase and improve their communities.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 90%

          • Financing: Interest earnings are able to keep the Manufactured Housing Park Program self-sustainable for core functions. Training and program innovations continue to be cost centers. However, continued growth increases financial stability.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: Have secured housing for 4,900 families in 79 parks in NH, which is 18% of the state's total parks. Owning a home in a Resident Owned Community (ROC) increases the likelihood of retaining homeownership and decreases the cost through 1) lower lot fees over time (ROC fees lag the market by $40 a month after 10 years); and 2) increased access to lower rate, fixed rate home mortgage loans. Research by The Carsey Institute has documented that the Loan Fund’s two-stage theory of change (i.e. both ownership of the land and access to fair home loans) is translating into higher housing values. The Carsey study showed that homes in ROCs sold for 12 percent more per square foot than homes in investor owned parks. Higher values translate to greater equity in most families’ largest asset.

          • Number of clients in past year: Served 6,447 clients

          • Percentage of clients that are poor or marginalized: 78%

          • Potential demand: Currently, 18% of manufactured parks in NH are ROCs (there are a total of 460 parks statewide and 22,500 home sites). An average of four to seven parks convert to cooperative ownership per year.

Nationally, there are 50,000 to 60,000 parks and 4 million home sites. Nearly three-quarters of the residents are low- income, and are vulnerable to excessive rent increases and displacement due to park closure.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Start Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: While the Loan Fund's Manufactured Housing Park Program is a mature program, the strategy for ROC USA is in the start- up phases.

ROC USA's strategy is to be in 4 states within the year. The strategy in 10 years is to be active in 30 states with infrastructure producing 300 conversions a year, a total of 15,000 home sites on an annual basis.

12) Origin of the initiative: The Loan Fund’s Manufactured Home Park Program was started in 1984; it was the first nonprofit in the country to explore this often ignored housing stock. Currently leading the program, and ROC USA, is Paul Bradley, Vice President of the Loan Fund. He has been involved in all areas of the program since 1988. He is responsible for a $30 million loan portfolio, a precedent- setting new manufactured housing development, and a staff of seventeen managers, trainers, loan counselors, project managers and assistants. He is a frequent speaker and author on market-based strategies aimed at improving dysfunctional manufactured housing markets. Paul was recently admitted to the Achieving Excellence Program at Harvard University, a competitive program for community development executives that face transformational opportunities.

Contact Information:
Paul  Bradley
Vice President
New Hampshire Community Loan Fund
(CDFI)
7 Wall Street
United States
Tel: (603) 224-6669
Fax: (603) 225-7425
Email: pbradley@nhclf.org
Website: www.theloanfund.org