Portfolio Partner Profile
Resident Ownership Capital
Formed in 2008, ROC USA Capital helps resident corporations buy their manufactured home communities from private community owners. To do this, ROC USA Capital first identifies communities that are for sale where homeowners have a strong likelihood of success if they choose to work as a group to purchase their community. Then, ROC USA Capital uses its network of local and regional non-profits who have been trained and certified to assist resident corporations through the purchase process and beyond. ROC USA Capital has developed a specialized source of financing for resident corporations who wish to buy their communities. Through this process, ROC USA hopes to preserve and improve affordable communities, build assets for low- and moderate-income families and individuals, and support mutually supportive communities and leaders. ROC USA has helped dozens of manufactured home communities in 14 states become resident-owned, preserving 10,000 homes as permanently affordable. In addition to delivering/leveraging more than $140 million for community purchases, the ROC USA network of communities has made more than $49 million in community improvements since 2008. On average, ROC assists a resident group purchase their community every 32 days.
Learn more about ROC USA's impact in the video below:
Featured Impact Story
Green Acres Court
Impact Story
Green Acres Court
George Everett remembers seeing news coverage of a nearby manufactured home community that was sold, shut down and redeveloped, forcing the dozens of families who lived there to relocate. Many struggled to find a new neighborhood for their homes, even if they could afford to move them. That’s part of what drove him to find another solution when the time came to sell the community he owned in Kalispell – Green Acres Court. Everett had purchased the park as an investment and owned it for several years before deciding to sell. Everett said he had started preparing to sell Green Acres on the commercial market when he remembered the displaced residents. Over the years, he’d come to know some of the homeowners in Green Acres and didn’t want to see the same thing happen to his longtime customers. “They just didn’t need to be disrupted from their homes,” he said. “I’d always thought about my tenants and I thought it would be a nice thing if they could own it.” A former state legislator, Everett said he felt his tenants deserved a fair shot at staying in their community and taking it over. He worked with NeighborWorks® Montana, the ROC USA® affiliate in Montana and in August 2010 sold the 32-site community to the newly formed Green Acres Cooperative for $900,000.
Impact Story
Cranberry Village
Colleen Preston was ready to slow down in 2010 when she moved to a mobile home park. But not long after moving into the 280-home community, word started to spread that Cranberry Village was being sold. Then a couple people heard about ROC USA. Just a few months later, Colleen was elected president of their new ROC’s board of directors. Colleen was surprised to find herself taking a leadership role in her ROC and then becoming active in the national resident ownership movement. “This is an idea whose time has come, and I love the thought of being part of something with such social significance and value,” she wrote in her bid to represent New England on the ROC Association Board of Directors. Without the help of ROC USA, she’s not sure what life would be like in Cranberry Village today. Instead of uncertainty about rent, for example, she and her neighbors decide what the rent will be and what to spend money on. Colleen was so impressed with the resident ownership movement that she applied for and landed a job with the Cooperative Development Institute. Now she’s helping other communities make the transition to resident ownership. “This mission is important because it really matters,” she said. “It’s a housing alternative that suddenly gives lower income families and seniors a real shot at controlling their own futures in a way that is not only affordable, it’s exciting.”
Affordable Housing
Community Development
