Nancy Froio, president of the residents’ association that purchased Halifax Estates, and her husband downsized into Halifax more than 12 years ago and fell in love with the community. A widow for nine years now, Froio is thankful that her neighborhood won’t be sold again now that she and her neighbors own it.
“I’m so excited about this, it means the world to me because it’s the best thing for the residents,” said Froio, a retired printing company employee in her 70s. “With so many of our residents retired and on fixed incomes, knowing we’re going to own it and run it the way we want to run it is such a relief. Now everyone is going to have a say.”
The resident association has purchased the community for $27 million with assistance from Cooperative Development Institute and ROC USA. Technical assistance will continue to be provided by CDI to the association for the length of the mortgage — a minimum of 10 years.
Halifax Estates is the 18th Massachusetts community supported by ROC USA Network and the 210th nationwide. In these democratic resident-owned communities (ROCs), homeowners each buy one low-cost membership interest. Each household has one vote on matters of the community. The members elect a Board of Directors to act on day-to-day issues and vote as a membership on larger matters like the annual budget, bylaws and community rules.
Financing for the project came from ROC USA® Capital in collaboration with TD Bank, Bank of America, Boston Community Capital and Leviticus 25:23 Alternative Fund. Andy Danforth, Director of CDI’s New England Resident Owned Communities (NEROC) Program, said: “We’re proud to be able to assist the residents with the purchase, and now operation, of their community.”
“They join over 30 other communities we have assisted in the last 7 years to secure their homesteads, control rents and vital services within democratic cooperatives.”
ROC USA President Paul Bradley praised the Halifax Board and CDI for leading the community through the purchase process. He said the size of this purchase demonstrates not only the motivation of homeowners to gain ownership of the land as a group but also the expanding capacity of the nonprofits that support them.
“Over time there have been lots of owners of large properties who have called and really wanted to sell their communities to the residents—their longtime customers—but assumed there wasn’t enough capacity in the nonprofit sector to do so,” Bradley said. “We are showing with our affiliates and with the leadership of homeowners that larger and increasingly more expensive properties are strong candidates for resident ownership. It’s where we’ve needed to be, and now we’re there!”
For more on this purchase, have a look at some of the press coverage we received:
- In Halifax, Mobile Home Residents Set Record By Buying The Land Beneath Their Homes on WGBH All Things Considered
- Huge Mobile Home Park Co-op Deal Puts Residents in Charge in Public News Service
- Residents buy Halifax mobile home park for $27 million in The Patriot Ledger
You can also visit the Halifax Estates website here.