‘Mini democracies’ foster affordable homes
CONCORD, N.H. — Owning a mobile home is one path to affordable housing in a state where that’s desperately needed. But it can come with an unseen risk, since many residents rent the land on which their homes sit.
“When someone owns a home but not the land beneath them, they’re always at risk of losing their home,” said Katie McQuaid, vice president of external relations at the Community Loan Fund.
If mobile home residents don’t own the land, their landlords can raise rents indiscriminately, or the landlords can sell the land out from under them. It could be redeveloped or purchased by private equity firms, which can then raise fees. These investors have started acquiring mobile home parks around the country, including in New Hampshire.
This precarious position can put residents at risk of homelessness, which is why the Community Loan Fund has spent the past 40 years working with residents to form resident-owned cooperatives, or ROCs, that can buy the land themselves.
Mobile homes are often truly mobile only once, when they’re moved from the factory to the trailer park or wherever they’re first set up. After that, it can cost thousands of dollars to move them again, and some can’t structurally withstand another move. So residents can effectively be left with little choice if new landlords start charging more in rent than they can afford. Of the 400 mobile home parks in New Hampshire, the Community Loan Fund has worked with 148 communities to adopt this model and permanently protect about 9,000 homes. It’s become a model for a national program called ROC USA.
McQuaid said owning a mobile home is an asset that helps residents build wealth, and manufactured homes increase in value more than a stick-built home in New Hampshire.
Parks always are coming up for sale, she said, and state law allows residents 60 days to match the offer of a competing buyer.
“Our goal is to keep lot rents low for the people who live there,” she said. That’s become more challenging, as out-of-state equity investors who can pay top dollar look to buy in New Hampshire, according to McQuaid.
The Community Loan Fund helps with low-cost financing, and works on securing grants and donations to supplement the cost of the parks to keep them affordable for residents.
She called the cooperatives “mini democracies,” where residents get to govern their own community and choose what kind of infrastructure improvements they want to make.
“Little New Hampshire is the birthplace of this cooperative movement,” she said.