NCF has been nominated for a 2022 Nonprofit Mission Award from the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits (MCN). The organization is now one of three finalists in the Innovation category, along with Springboard for the Arts and Just the Pill.
NCF is honored to be considered for a 2022 Nonprofit Mission Award, which includes a professional video highlighting each recipient's work, a cash award, and other recognition raising awareness of our mission among Minnesota's community of nonprofit professionals.
NCF is excited to announce the addition of three new directors to the NCF board, bringing the board roster to 10 members. The new directors all come from nonprofit lending and finance backgrounds, proficiencies that will guide NCF’s strategic direction as we work to develop a loan program designed to meet the unique capital needs of housing cooperatives.
NCF is pleased to announce that we are the recipients of the Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) Seed grants for the Metro, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest regions of Minnesota.
NCF will use the grant to improve the energy efficiency of manufactured homes within the resident owned communities we support and develop a tailored rehab loan product that homeowners can use to complete home rehab projects.
In October 2020, NCF received an email from Morning Bell Coffee Roasters inquiring about using an NCF-authored brochure called “Small Business Ownership Succession; The Cooperative Solution.” The brochure was created by NCF a number of years ago and intended as an overview on the tax benefits of becoming a worker cooperative. The owner of Morning Bell, Nadav Mer, reached out because he was in the process of developing a feasibility assessment on whether his company could convert to being worker owned and he came across our work. As a cooperative development organization, we jumped at the chance to assist – about taxes and beyond!
Soren Stevenson joined NCF in May as the organization's Real Estate Development Officer. Samuel Estes joined the organization in October as a Housing Program Associate. Soren and Samuel are both graduates of the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs and were drawn to NCF's mission of empowering underserved communities through the cooperative ownership model.
Legislators gathered for a tour of Park Plaza Cooperative on September 21, 2021. Pictured left to right: Senator Lindsey Port, Rep. Sandra Feist, Rep. Steve Elkins, Sen. Mary Kunesh, Victoria Clark (NCF), Rep. Connie Bernardy, Natividad Seefeld (Board President, Park Plaza Co-op), Sen. Mark Koran, Soren Stevenson (NCF), Trevor Nelson (APAC Board President), Rep. Tony Jurgens.
NCF co-hosted a Minnesota legislator tour of Park Plaza Co-op in Fridley, MN on Tuesday, September 21, 2021. Fifteen legislators and legislative staff attended the event. The event’s co-host, the Park Plaza board of directors, had an opportunity to share the positive impacts that cooperative ownership has had in their community and legislators had an opportunity to hear about what can be done at the Legislature to improve and preserve more manufactured home communities.
Some of the issues highlighted during the tour included the need for dedicated down payment assistance programs and improved home financing options for manufactured homeowners. Staff from All Parks Alliance for Change also provided background on a resident-led campaign to pass a bill that would expand the opportunity for cooperative ownership to more manufactured homeowners.
View photos from the legislator tour.
Learn more about NCF’s public policy work.
On June 24, the Minnesota House advanced a final housing bill just days before the June 30 special session deadline. The bill included several notable wins for Minnesota manufactured homeowners including changes to how manufactured homes can be titled and increased funding for cooperative acquisitions of manufactured home communities and infrastructure improvement projects.
Real Property Titling for Manufactured Homes. Like the majority of states across the country, manufactured homes in Minnesota are titled as personal property if they are sited in a land-lease community (ie: a community where the residents own their homes but rent the land underneath the home). The 2021 housing bill approves a new policy that allows owners of manufactured homes in cooperative- or nonprofit-owned communities to title their homes as real property instead of personal property.
NCF has advocated for manufactured home titling reforms for many years. We hope the new real property designation for homes in our client co-ops will attract new lenders to the manufactured housing market and improve the loan terms available to homeowners.
Changes to the Rehabilitation Loan Program. Minnesota Housing’s Rehabilitation Loan Program (RLP) assists low income homeowners in financing basic home improvements that directly affect the safety, habitability, energy efficiency, or accessibility of their homes. The legislature approved an expansion of the program to allow the loans to be used toward the replacement of a manufactured home. The loan amount maximum was also raised from $27,000 to $37,500 per loan.
Opportunity to Purchase. This year, a group of homeowners from manufactured home communities across the state led a campaign to pass a law that would provide manufactured homeowners with an opportunity to purchase their community any time the property was going up for sale. Six other states across the country have opportunity to purchase laws, including in Colorado, which passed the law in 2020.
The bill language was included in the House of Representatives omnibus bill, but did not receive a hearing in the Senate so was not included in the final housing omnibus bill. The campaign’s leadership plans to bring the bill forward again in 2022. Learn more about the opportunity to purchase bill by visiting the campaign’s website: mn4otp.org.
Funding Allocations. The housing bill includes $10 million in new, one-time funding and $100 million in Housing Infrastructure Bonds (HIBs).
Of the $10 million in one-time funding that was allocated, the Manufactured Home Park Infrastructure Program (MHCRP) received $1,750,000 in addition to the program’s existing base appropriation of $1,000,000. The total amount available through the MHCRP in 2022 will be $2,750,000. Eligible uses of the MHCRP include manufactured home community acquisitions and community improvement projects. Funds are available once a year, typically in mid-August, through a competitive application process.
The Workforce and Affordable Homeownership Development (WAHD) Program received $3,250,000 above the program’s existing base appropriation of $250,000 per year. The total amount available through the Workforce Homeownership Program in 2022 will be $3,500,000. WAHD provides one-time grants for residential housing development and rehabilitation, land development, and infrastructure development and repair for manufactured home communities. Funds are available once a year, in mid-July, through a competitive application process.
Perhaps the most notable outcome of the 2021 session for manufactured housing was the inclusion of a $15,000,000 set-aside of Housing Infrastructure Bonds to be used for manufactured home community acquisitions and infrastructure improvements. The total HIB authorization approved by the Legislature was $100,000,000.
Housing Infrastructure Bonds (HIBs) are limited obligation tax-exempt bonds issued by Minnesota Housing and authorized by appropriations from the General Fund of the Minnesota Legislature. The proceeds of HIBs may be used to fund loans that finance specific housing development purposes.
In 2018, the eligible uses of HIBs was expanded to include manufactured home community infrastructure improvements and expanded again in 2019 to allow HIBs to be used for acquisition of manufactured home communities.
NCF Cooperative Housing Manager, Julie Martinez, discusses project details with Sungold’s engineer consultant, WSB.
A little after two years since becoming Minnesota’s 9th resident-owned community, Sungold Heights is nearly finished with a $2.6 million infrastructure project. The project replaces the property’s aging water and sewer systems and reconstructs the roads throughout the community. The project, which is slated to be complete by October 2021, has garnered local attention and was featured in the Worthington Globe. A press release can be found on NCF’s website.
The project is funded by grants from Minnesota Housing, a loan from the Southwest Initiative Foundation, and the corporation’s reserves.
A recent MPR story highlighted the problem of deferred infrastructure maintenance in manufactured home communities and the effect that infrastructure failure has on the homeowners who rent the land. As NCF’s Executive Director highlights in the story, landowners often choose not to upgrade the infrastructure in their communities because it is capital intensive and there is little economic incentive to make improvements.
The Sungold Heights project demonstrates the difference that resident-ownership makes when it comes to the upkeep of critical infrastructure systems. When the decisions about what happens to the property are in the hands of the homeowners who live there, there is a built-in incentive to improve the functional use of the property and improve curb appeal.
Stay tuned for announcements about Sungold’s project completion celebration!
We at Northcountry Cooperative Foundation are happy to report that Common Ground 2021 was another “virtual” success. Every year, NCF hosts a conference for leaders of resident owned communities (ROCs) across Minnesota and Wisconsin about perineal issues facing ROCs. This year, Common Ground featured seven remote sessions over the course of two weeks that covered a myriad of topics including Board Recruitment, Conflict Resolution, Marketing on a Budget, and Emergency Preparedness.
Building off the success of last year’s conference, we had record breaking attendance with twenty attendees across seven communities within the ROC Network attending an average of four sessions each. All sessions were recorded and are featured on the NCF YouTube page.
We were also excited to once again offer community grants to attendees based on the generous donations of the thirteen sponsors of this year’s conference (see sponsor list below). Based on attendance and participation, five of the seven communities will be receiving $3,000 in grants that will focus on marketing and recruitment of new members. Grant recipients will determine how their community will spend the grant, whether it be magnets to all members to better connect with the onsite manager or yard signs for an upcoming annual meeting to boost attendance.
Next year NCF hopes to take a hybrid approach to the conference where a portion of the classes will be remote in addition to an in-person event that will focus on networking and community development. Looking forward to 2022 and beyond!
2021 Common Ground Conference Sponsors: TSP Architects Engineering Planning, Southwest Initiative Foundation, ROC USA, Ralph K. Morris Foundation, First Alliance Credit Union, Cooperative Development Foundation, Haylor, Freyer & Coon Inc., Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation, Minnesota Housing Partnership, Adams, Rizzi & Sween PA, Common Properties Management Cooperative, Cooperative Development Bank, Homes of Harmony
NCF is excited to announce the addition of four new directors to the NCF board. The new directors, three from Wisconsin and one from Greater MN, reflect NCF’s commitment to better reflecting the geographies served by the organization. The new board recruits come from diverse personal and professional backgrounds. Among the new directors include Brian Dahlk, a Madison, WI-based accountant specializing in cooperative accounting, Bobbie Grubb, a long-time resident leader from one of NCF’s client co-ops in La Crosse, WI, Diane Schobert, a retired community development finance professional from Birchwood, WI, and Mar Valdecantos, a writer, interpreter, and community activist from Northfield, MN.
Brian Dahlk is a CPA and senior manager at Wegner CPAs in Madison, Wisconsin. He has been a member of three different housing cooperatives and served as board president for one of those organizations. For the past fourteen years he has provided audits, financial reviews, tax returns, and consulting services for hundreds of cooperative organizations all across the country, including several dozen housing cooperatives. Brian received his master’s degree in business in 1992 and his Certified Public Accountant designation in 2006. Prior to joining Wegner CPAs, he served as the financial manager of a housing cooperative for nine years, owned a small business, and provided accounting and managerial services for several nonprofits and cooperatives in Wisconsin and California.
Bobbie Grubb has been a resident of Pammel Creek Estates, a resident-owned community in La Crosse, Wisconsin, since 2013 and has served as secretary of the board of directors since 2016. She also serves as co-chair of the ROC USA Outreach and Education Committee. She’s employed by Festival Foods in La Crosse. She’s a regular volunteer at The Center: LGBTQ Connection and at a variety of community events. Bobbie takes every opportunity to broaden her skills and capacity as a board member and co-op leader. She attends ROC USA’s annual ROC Leadership Institute every year and frequents NCF training and networking events. “I love learning and experiencing new things, and with the help of NCF and ROC USA, I appreciate all the opportunities that being a resident-owned community has offered me.”
Diane Schobert is a resident of Birchwood, Wisconsin and has a unique and diverse work history in affordable housing and economic development in Wisconsin. As a recent retiree, she serves on the Educational Foundation for Birchwood Schools, which raises funds for students and teachers. Previously, she served as Chair for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s (FHLBC) Affordable Housing Advisory Council, representing non-profits across Wisconsin and Illinois; she served on the Board for Impact 7, a statewide Community Development Financial Institution in Rice Lake, Wisconsin; she worked at the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) as Business Development Officer; she served as executive director of Movin’ Out, a statewide Wisconsin nonprofit housing agency; she worked as a residential lending manager, helping to create the expanded underwriting guidelines for WHEDA.
Mar Valdecantos is a native of Madrid and has lived in Minnesota since 1998. She is a writer, community organizer, artist and English-to-Spanish document translator for the Northfield (Minnesota) School District. She’s always been concerned with social injustices and has endeavored to understand the political process and the partnership between entities that usually don’t communicate with each other. As a member of the Northfield Human Rights Commission, she works to advance the rights of the underrepresented and voiceless in Northfield. She’s also co-founder of Rice County Neighbors United/Vecinxs Unidxs, an advocacy group that fights for the rights and dignity of all persons, especially immigrants, refugees and low-income groups. “Being an immigrant has given me an increased knowledge and empathy for all refugees and immigrants around the world,” she said.
Conference attendees collaborate in a World Cafe exercise at Common Ground 2018.
Author: Emily Stewart
The Common Ground Conference is an annual event NCF hosts for housing co-op leaders across Minnesota and Wisconsin. The conference is about coming together, building new relationships and learning from each other.
The conference ensures the ongoing success of the housing cooperatives we support as it provides leaders with access to timely, best-practice information related to the operation and governance of their communities. Most importantly, the event provides valuable networking opportunities for leaders who can feel isolated in their day-to-day work—especially considering the circumstances of the past year.
This year NCF has decided to once again offer all classes virtually in order to accommodate the remote structure many of our co-ops are still operating under and the busy schedules of our leaders.
Over the course of two weeks in early August, NCF will host seven unique discussions centering around topics chosen by residents; including infill, the fair housing act, board recruitment, marketing, and financial literacy. All sessions are completely free and available to all existing and emerging resident owned cooperatives in the NCF service area.
A few features we are excited to share:
Based on attendance for each community, all co-ops will be eligible to receive up to a $1,000 grant for marketing and outreach to their membership (made possible by our generous sponsors)
All attendees with receive a conference t-shirt in the mail (and travel coffee mug, if they attend 2+ sessions)
Residents can pick and choose the sessions that apply to their specific needs!
Registration opens on July 12th and can be found via the NCF homepage or the NCF Facebook page. For additional information or if you have any questions, please contact Emily Stewart at emily@northcountryfoundation.org
Event details: Wednesday, August 4th-13th, held entirely online. Tickets available on Eventbrite and Facebook.
Author: Emily Stewart
Recently, a national publication published an article titled “What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks?” While the article does a good job outlining the increasing interest by investment firms in buying manufactured home communities, it was amazing to me that still, in 2021, a national publication is using terms like ‘trailer parks’ and ‘mobile-homes.’ As Marjory Gilsrud, President of Madelia Mobile Village in Madelia, MN, stated in our interview last week - “They don’t hook up behind a truck. They are not trailers. They are our homes, manufactured homes.”
So how are communities addressing the misconceptions of manufactured housing? And perhaps more importantly, what are home owners saying about their experience living in manufactured homes? This article will attempt to answer both questions – using the words of three community members across Minnesota and Wisconsin.
by La Citta Vita is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, creativecommons.org
Peggy Claflin, onsite manager at Pammel Creek Estates in La Crosse, WI, first started living in manufactured homes back in Texas. Living on a ranch in a double unit home, she said she fell in love with the experience and didn’t see anything negative about it. It wasn’t until she moved back to Wisconsin to take care of her aging parents that she began to see a shift in people’s attitude. “You see it in the way that people react to you. When you tell people that you live in a manufactured home community, they take a step back and sometimes abruptly end conversations,” Claflin says, disheartened by those interactions.
Gilsrud’s experience in manufactured housing was a little different. She moved into her first manufactured home thirteen years ago. But Gilsrud was not unfamiliar with manufactured housing – as her step dad had owned a manufactured home community in Eagle Lake when she was younger. Her and her husband’s first home was actually in the very same community her step dad had once owned but had long sold and now was in the hands of an out of state investor. Upon arrival, she was surprised because there was no sense of community, the lot rent had more than tripled, and residents themselves were disparaging of their homes and referred to them as trailers. That prompted her to find Madelia Mobile Village which, at that point, had converted to being a resident owned community. Her experience changed dramatically. She had found what she was looking for –rent was stable, homes were affordable, and there was a distinct sense of community.
From Five Lakes Cooperative in Fairmont, MN, Janelle Schomberg grew up from the age of 13 in manufactured homes. She has fond memories of her experience; saying it was “a smaller community, where people didn’t judge you and everyone was on equal ground.” It wasn’t until she got a bit older when she experienced her peers say things like “trailer trash,” and such. While it bothered her when she was younger, Schomberg states “I’m older now, and I don’t let that stuff bug me.” Now living at Five Lakes, she loves that it’s a quieter community and that she has a beautiful view at the end of long road. “I see deer, wild turkey. It’s almost country where I’m at. It’s beautiful.”
It’s clear from Claflin, Gilsrud and Schomberg’s accounts that there is a vast amount of people -both within and outside of manufactured home communities- that don’t appreciate all the benefits of living in manufactured home communities. Schomberg believes that it’s a great opportunity for seniors to live independently at an affordable rate. In Claflin’s experience, it provides a lot of versatility in making a home your own. She says she gets frustrated by people who judge houses by their age because so many residents continually update their homes and they can be just as good as newer homes on the market. Gilsrud says the best part of living in manufactured homes is “that it is mine and that its paid for. And because it is in a resident owned community, the fear factor is gone.”
When it comes to addressing the misconceptions of manufactured housing, there is a still a long way to go. It takes a village to ensure that the tide continues to turn. In Madelia, Gilsrud says she tries to address things one person at a time, encouraging people to take pride in their home because if you are ashamed of where you live, “are you not ultimately judging yourself?”
Last September, NCF was awarded $90,000 from the USDA Rural Development Office through its Socially Disadvantaged Group Grant (SDGG) program. These funds will support community improvement projects in NCF’s client cooperatives in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The grant focuses on three of the most chronic challenges facing NCF’s client co-ops: stormwater management, storm shelters, and vacant lot infill.
“The award will allow NCF and our client co-ops to capitalize on recent successes and leverage that success to accelerate innovative, practical, and cost-effective solutions to ongoing infrastructure issues. The solutions developed will not only improve the health, safety, and quality of life for individual co-op members, but will also improve the overall health and financial performance of the larger cooperative corporation to which the members belong,” NCF’s Executive Director Victoria Clark said.
The grant period beings in January 2021 and goes through the end of the calendar year.
Read the press release for more information.
In addition to developing stormwater management and vacant lot infill solutions, the SDGG award will be used to engage an architect to develop cost-effective prototype designs for dual-use storm shelter and community buildings. This activity builds on the success of shelter prototype design work NCF completed in 2016. The 2016 designs were used to develop a successful funding application to Minnesota Housing for a first of its kind stand-alone storm shelter project completed in 2019 at Park Plaza Cooperative in Fridley, MN. The photo above pictures Park Plaza residents, NCF staff, state elected officials, and Minnesota Housing Finance Agency staff who attended the grand opening celebration of the building in April 2019.
An architectural rendering of the Park Plaza storm shelter building. Credit: TSP Architects & Engineers.
Zumbro Ridge’s original playground, fall 2018. Photo credit: Tom Guettler.
Soon after joining the Zumbro Ridge Estates (ZRE) board of directors as Operations Manager in June 2018, Allie Lechner decided that building a new children’s playground would be key to keeping existing families and attracting new families to the community.
Zumbro Ridge’s new playground and basketball court, August 2020. Photo credit: Tom Guettler.
Getting started
Lechner did some research and early estimates indicated it would cost about $90,000 to build a basketball court and commercial-grade playground. “Yeah, that seemed like a huge amount of money,” Lechner said. “We hadn’t allocated any money for this project, so I decided to fundraise. I wrote 400 letters and started a GoFundMe page, but was able to raise only a couple thousand dollars.” After applying for several grants, she was finally awarded a $25,000 grant by the Hanson Family Foundation, with the condition that any money not spent on the project by June 2020 had to be returned.
Finding Funding
So, Lechner went to work. “Through the end of 2018 and into 2019,” she said, “I made speeches at local churches, civic organizations, city agencies, and to anyone that would listen. I bet I made several hundred calls and visits. The Rochester Bulletin ran an article about the project. TV station KIMT aired a segment. Money started coming in.”
She received a bid of $18,000 from Rochester Asphalt to build the basketball court, but talked them into donating $9,000. The remaining $9,000 came from the Hanson grant, leaving $16,000 for use on the playground. The court was built in July 2019, and Bear Creek Church donated the poles and hoops.
Donations and pledges for the playground continued to come in throughout 2019 and into 2020. “Just when the goal was in sight,” Lechner said, “COVID hit. Donors began canceling their pledges and the project was still short $23,000. I panicked. There was a deadline for ordering the playground equipment and the Foundation money had to be spent.”
“The board and ROC Capital agreed that we could use our reserves to fund the gap, with the condition that I receive member approval and continue to fundraise and replenish the funds from outside donations. I began by going door-to-door and I received member permission.”
Putting it all together
Fortunately, donations continued to come in and reserves were not used. Playground equipment was ordered. A local excavating company donated 80 truckloads of fill for the playground site. “We were grateful for the fill,” Allie said, “but then realized there were large rocks in the fill, and we had to spend several days picking rocks.”
NCF staff snap a screenshot of one of the Common Ground virtual panel discussions.
In September, NCF hosted its first entirely virtual conference, Common Ground. With the help of countless community members, seven outside guest speakers and the dedicated staff of NCF, Common Ground was a success. Co-op leaders gathered over seven sessions to learn about and discuss important topics such as infill, infrastructure management, collections, beautification, conflict resolution and technology. One session was spearheaded by two community members, Pat Streeter of Park Plaza and Bobbie Grubb of Pammel Creek. Streeter and Grubb facilitated a great conversation where community members shared challenges and successes their co-ops had experienced in the last year.
A unique feature of this year’s event included two grants of $1,000 each awarded in a random drawing (entries based on those who attended the Common Ground learning sessions).
Madelia Mobile Village Cooperative of Madelia, MN won the $1,000 technology grant. The board plans to create a digital library for board and community members. They will purchase several Chromebooks that will be housed in the community office.
Board and community members will be able to sign them out to use for Board business or for connecting virtually. All computers will be linked to their board email addresses via G Suite and will, as a result, have access to all their shared folders that guide the board in their decision making processes.
In Fridley, MN, Park Plaza Cooperative won the $1,000 Beautification Grant. They are planning to hire landscape architect, Jason Rathe of Field Outdoor Spaces. Jason led a training for the conference on Community Beautification. Park Plaza will work with Jason to design and build a beautiful landscaped area in the front and back entrance of the park. It is their hope that this touch will encourage residents to take pride in their community as well as act as a generative marketing tool for new residents interested in moving into their community.
Next year NCF hopes to be back to an in-person event; in the meantime it was great to be able to connect virtually.
