Manufactured homes in mobile home parks were not always an intriguing alternative for low-income people. Homeowners could be evicted on 30 days notice simply because their landlord wanted to do something different with the land. And their value depreciated over time. The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund's transformative work in the mortgage market for these homes has changed that.

"These guys are really, really smart," says George McCarthy, director of metropolitan opportunity at the Ford Foundation. "[NHCLF] president Juliana Eades is creative, thoughtful, and willing to take risks and put the institution and the institution's money on the line to make things happen."

Since 1984, the Concord, N.H.-based community development finance institution, or CDFI, has helped organize and finance more than 100 cooperatives in New Hampshire that allow homeowners to own the mobile home parks underneath their homes. That's more than 20% of the parks in the state, and this does not just give control of the land back to people who were prey to random decisions by landowners.

Contrary to perception, it is also a key reason that 40% of these homes are appreciating in value, according to studies conducted by the Consumer Union and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Based on its success in New Hampshire, NHCLF in 2008 spun off ROC USA, a partnership with the Corporation for Enterprise Development and NCB Capital, to catalyze cooperative ownership of mobile home parks nationwide. And during the last nine years, NHCLF has also made $25 million in loans to finance 600 homes in those parks in New Hampshire. Loans range from $10,000 to $100,000, and the default rate is 1.6%.

NHCLF is also lauded for its innovative small business loans for growth businesses, which incorporate royalty financing that goes up and down based on ability to pay.

Individuals can invest in NHCLF for one to 25 years. Invested money is combined with NHCLF’s own capital to create the pool of funds it lends to create affordable housing and jobs.

Returns range up to 4% (for 7 to 9 years) and 5% (for 10 years-plus.)  NHCLF is rated AAA+2 by the CDFI Assessment and Ratings System, or CARS, and the minimum investment is $1000. Top investors include Ford Foundation, Endowment for Health, Bank of America and Sovereign Bank.

Going Mobile
In l983 when an elderly couple needed to sell the land that supported 13 manufactured homes so the husband could go to a nursing home, the residents quickly realized there was no place to go and their homes were not really mobile. The group, aided by a board member of the newly forming NHCLF, organized as a cooperative to buy it together. But when no bank would lend them the funds, the NHCLF stepped in with a $43,000 loan so the cooperative could buy 67 acres.

"They weren't imagining themselves to have an access-to-capital problem," says NHCLF president Julie Eades. "They were imagining themselves as having a homelessness eviction lose-their-home problem."