by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
A fund has been established to help residents of Sartell Mobile Home Park get enough money to fix the ailing infrastructure in the neighborhood they want to own.
For how to donate, see the very end of this story.
That park, formerly known as Hi-Vue Estates, is for sale by its private owner. But since March, more than 65 percent of its residents have formed a non-profit corporation dubbed “Eagle’s View” with the intention of purchasing the park and operating it via their own corporation. There are 163 homes sites in the park. The residents keen on buying the park land have even agreed to raise their lot rents to make self-ownership possible.
However, there is an obstacle. The water and sewer lines, and roads within the park are badly in need of repair and/or replacement. The residents are in need of $200,000 in gap funding to make the infrastructure improvements possible. The total cost for the infrastructure projects is estimated at $1.6 million worth of capital-improvement costs.
Current underwriting suggests the Eagle’s View Corp. would be able to obtain $850,000 of capital-improvement costs from identifiable lenders. Currently, the Eagle’s View Board, a park residents’ task force and Northcountry Cooperative Foundation are working together to find ways to obtain the other $750,000 needed for the infrastructure project. Of that amount, Eagle’s View hopes to raise $200,000 of it in gap funding.
Recently, some of the Eagle’s View Board members, all long-time residents of the park, spoke before the Sartell City Council, requesting the city to help them in any way it can. The council took the suggestion under advisement.
Northcountry Cooperative Foundation, based in the Twin Cities, tries to help save housing through cooperative enterprises. Since 2004, NCF has helped eight mobile-home parks (also known as manufactured-housing communities) purchase, own and operate their housing parks. That switch to resident ownership involved about 600 households – that is, thousands of people who did not have to move from their homes and seek housing elsewhere.
Nationally, there are more than 1,000 mobile-home parks with a total of 10,000 home sites that are now resident-owned, according to NCF.
A number of mobile-home parks in the state have been closing after the private owners sell the land. Two of them were in the greater St. Cloud area: Shady Oaks in St. Cloud and Tri-County in Waite Park. What typically happens is as infrastructure (water-sewer lines, roads) in parks deteriorates, the companies that own the parks decide the major repairs are too expensive, and decide to close the parks and sell the land.
“From the start,” said Kevin Walker, NCF spokesman, “the residents (of Sartell Mobile Home Park) have shown a tremendous commitment and determination to take ownership and control of their community.”
In a record pace, the Sartell residents organized and convinced 94 households in the park to join the residents’ non-profit company, Eagle’s View.
According to NCF, mobile-home parks that are bought and owned by their residents provide their residents with long-term security, stabilized lot rents, a direct voice in improvements, community rules and management and, over time, better access to home financing.
Leslie Herndon, a resident of the Sartell park and secretary of Eagle’s View, is proud she and others in the park have enlisted the support of more than 65 percent of households in just the first four months of organizing. That mobile-home park – and others – she said, provides affordable housing. If they are forced to move, many will not be able to afford apartment rents, some of which are as high as $1,000 a month and even more.
That is a crucial consideration, she noted, because there are so many disabled people, veterans and seniors living on fixed incomes in the park. There are also a number of working people who live there and who make low wages.
Herndon said there have been many major, disruptive water-main breaks and other infrastructure problems at the park throughout the years. That is why residents understand the infrastructure would have to be fixed before residents could secure a loan or loans to buy the park.
For more about the Sartell Mobile Home Park and/or how to donate to its gap fund, google “Northcountry Cooperative Foundation.”
