Northcountry Cooperative Foundation

Protecting precious, vibrant, affordable communities

“I feared losing my community and my house. You see, as a homeowner in a manufactured housing community, I own my home but rent the land beneath it. Those sleepless nights ended the day my neighbors and I voted to form a cooperative.” 

                                                                                         -Natividad Seefeld, President of the Board, Park Plaza Cooperative, Fridley, Minnesota

Do you want to be part of the solution to the affordable housing crisis? Join Northcountry Cooperative Foundation (NCF) in connecting more families with cooperative affordable housing. Your support will help to develop and maintain cooperatives for low-income Minnesota residents, preventing their affordable communities from being lost to out-of-state investment firm market speculation or redevelopment.

NCF has a long history of bringing community-owned manufactured housing to Minnesota. We’re drawing on our staff’s combined 80 years of specialized experience to provide technical assistance that helps to preserve affordable housing by putting and keeping manufactured home communities ("mobile home parks") in the hands of their owners. Manufactured home communities are the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in Minnesota, providing homes for millions of low-income Americans and furnishing an attainable path to homeownership. Nationwide, out-of-state investment firms are purchasing communities, raising rents, charging new fees, and imposing new restrictions, leaving homeowners vulnerable to displacement. These firms aren't interested in maintaining the expensive, privately-owned infrastructure of the communities such as roads, sewers, and water, leaving communities without basic amenities such as drinkable water and passable roads. Cooperative ownership means that community decisions are made by and for residents through a democratic process, with ongoing support from NCF.

We cannot afford to lose another community to speculative out-of-state investment firms interested in profiting from the oppression of low-income Minnesotans. Your donation will help protect the next community from being redeveloped or subjected to sky-high rents and unlivable conditions. Please, give what you can to support local communities in need of cooperative development support. Today, you can give the gift of autonomy, self-determination, and democratic governance to residents who otherwise could be subjected to oppressive rules, prohibitive rent, and displacement from the communities and schools they love.