Merrill Lynch to Finance Resident Owned Communities

Merrill Lynch Community Development Company, LLC announced the opening of a $10mm Line of Credit with ROC USA™ Capital.

ROC USA Capital makes commercial loans to the owners of manufactured or “mobile” homes who have formed a resident corporation to purchase their manufactured home community (or “mobile home parks”).

In the United States, roughly 35 percent of owners of manufactured homes live in communities (or “parks”) where they rent the lot on which their home sits. As a result, many residents have lost or are at risk of losing their homes, which are not truly “mobile” when the land on which their homes sit is literally sold from underneath them. Resident ownership has been demonstrated to stabilize communities, improve home financing options and improve home values.

ROC USA Capital is the financing subsidiary of ROC USA, LLC, a national non-profit social enterprise formed to help the 3.5 million American families living in the country’s 50,000 manufactured home communities to buy, preserve and improve these affordable communities.

ROC USA Capital was founded in August with financial investments from the Ford Foundation, CFED, NCB Capital Impact, New Hampshire Community Loan Fund and NeighborWorks America.

“This Line of Credit provides essential financing that will enable us to act quickly when opportunity knocks for homeowners,” notes Michael Sloss, Managing Director, ROC USA Capital.

“We are pleased to support ROC USA and help preserve an important affordable housing resource for working and retired homeowners who live in manufactured home communities. Resident ownership has been demonstrated to align ownership interests, preserve affordable communities, and reduce the economic insecurity these homeowners face,” said Terri Ludwig, President, Merrill Lynch Community Development Company.

Resident ownership occurs when owners of manufactured homes form a membership association to purchase their community when it becomes available for sale. Without resident ownership, homeowners risk eviction when a park is sold to a new owner who may convert the land to other uses, or impose higher land rents over which homeowners have no control.

ROC USA’s second subsidiary, ROC USA Network, is a network of non-profit organizations that provides resident corporations with training and technical assistance and currently operates in 29 states.

“ROC USA was designed to help homeowners take advantage of the opportunity to purchase when their community is for sale,” said Paul Bradley, founding president of ROC USA, LLC. “We have aligned qualified technical assistance providers with capital to help make resident ownership viable in more places.”

ROC USA is the national expansion of a program that has been operated in New Hampshire by the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund since 1984. “Resident ownership is a good investment – stable fees, a nice park and people getting involved,” notes Dottie Hillock, a long-time Director for the South Parrish Road Cooperative in Winchester, New Hampshire.

ROC USA Network’s Certified Technical Assistance Providers work in 29 states: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DE, IA, ID, LA, MN, MS, MT, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NV, OH, OK, OR, PA, SD, TX, TN, UT, WA, WI and WY.

ROC USA™ is a social enterprise that offers training, networking and financing to help owners of manufactured homes gain security through ownership of their communities. We work through two wholly-owned subsidiaries: ROC USA™ Network member organizations – non-profit Certified Technical Assistance Providers – who provide the pre- and post-purchase training and technical assistance that helps homeowners buy and sustain their community; and ROC USA™ Capital that makes community purchase loans that provide a low-cost way for all homeowners within a community to become a member and voter in their member-controlled corporation or cooperative. www.rocusa.org

Merrill Lynch Community Development Company (MLCDC) is a community development investment bank established in 2001 to provide financing solutions and support to underserved communities. Leveraging Merrill Lynch’s intellectual and financial capital, MLCDC establishes strategic partnerships with community leaders to develop projects that benefit low- and moderate-income areas and individuals. MLCDC looks for lending, investment, and program development opportunities. MLCDC seeks collaborative partnerships with governmental and quasi-governmental entities, non-profit and for-profit intermediaries and other financial institutions in a broad range of community development activities that fulfill Merrill Lynch banks’ community reinvestment goals under the Federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). For more information, please visit http://www.ml.com/?id=7695_8134_13653_71392. While its activities are national in scope, MLCDC concentrates its efforts in communities in California, New Jersey, New York and Utah.