When talking about housing, detached homes and multifamily apartments get most of the attention, but more than 18 million Americans live in manufactured housing in mobile home parks—which are de facto the largest source of affordable housing in the United States.

In this 90-minute webinar, cosponsored and co-moderated by NPQ and Shelterforce, a panel of folks, including residents, advocates, and technical assistance providers discuss the ins and outs of how to build land security for manufactured housing owners, by enabling mobile home communities to come together and own the land jointly.

Participating in the webinar conversation are the following people:

Andrea Chiriboga-Flor is executive director of Justice for the People Legal Center, in Denver, Colorado, where she helped organize the Montevista Comunidad cooperative.

Kelly Jensen is Board President at Paradise Village Cooperative in Johnstown, CO and represents the Mountain West Region of the ROC-USA Association board of directors.

Doug McElroy is the former president of the board of the Pleasant Park cooperative in Great Falls, Montana and helped create the community’s cooperative.

Emily Thaden is president of ROC-USA, a national organization launched in 2008 with the mission of supporting quality resident ownership of mobile home communities nationwide.

This webinar explores:

  • How do mobile home communities work—and not work—today?
  • What is a resident-owned community and how does it operate? What are the benefits of cooperative resident land ownership for mobile homeowners?
  • What threats do residents in manufactured housing communities face? What has been the impact of growing corporate investor ownership of mobile home parks?
  • How can local policy help tenants buy land of manufactured communities from landlords and collectively own property themselves?
  • In developing a ROC, what roles are played by the national ROC-USA, the local technical assistance provider, and the residents themselves?
  • What lessons are being learned from the decades of experience with the ROC model? What are the opportunities for expansion?
  • Are there scenarios in which residents don’t want to or are unable to become cooperative owners themselves? What might be alternatives solutions in that scenario?
  • What can people in nonprofits or movement organizations do to support ROC development?

Resources:

Abt Associates, Expanding Resident and Nonprofit Ownership of Manufactured Home Parks, Rockville, MD: Abt Associates Policy Brief, April 2022.

Ryan Briggs, “Taking Ownership into Their Own Hands,” Shelterforce, September 2, 2019.

Andrea Chiriboga Flor, “A Community Creates Denver’s First Resident-Owned Mobile Home Park,” NPQ, July 17, 2024.

Adam Poeschl, From Tenant to Owner:  An Introduction to Resident Owned Communities, Great Falls, Helena, and Missoula, MT: NeighborWorks Montana and ROC USA, 2021.

Meir Rinde, “From Mobile Home Parks to Multifamily Housing Cooperatives,” Shelterforce, August 2, 2021.

ROC USA, Impact Report: Comunidad Nuevo Lago, Concord, NH: ROC USA, August 2024.

Claire Rush, “Mobile home park residents form co-ops to save their homes,” Associated Press, April 8, 2023.

Rutledge A. Simmons, “How Resident-Owned Communities Can Create Mass Affordable Homeownership,” NPQ, February 7, 2024.

Alison Stine, “How Mobile Home Owners Organize for Land Ownership and Climate Resiliency,” NPQ, February 2, 2024.

David J. Thompson, “The Cost of Not Going Co-op,” Shelterforce, October 13, 2022.