Common Ground conference remains virtual this year, scheduled for Aug. 4th - 13th

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.

Addressing the stigma of manufactured housing

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?”  

NCF Awarded $90,000 USDA grant to fund infrastructure solutions in client co-ops

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.

Co-op Spotlight: It's 'time to play' at Zumbro Ridge Estates

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.” 

2020 Common Ground Conference proves a "virtual" success

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.