In January, a manufactured home park—Family Redwood Park Cooperative—in Grants Pass became the first resident-owned cooperative in Josephine County. CASA staff joined them to celebrate this milestone at a celebration in early February where residents proudly held banners that said, “We Own It!” in English and Spanish.
“It started when we received notice of our park being sold in April 2023,” said Berenice Maya, Family Redwood Park Interim Board Secretary. “We weren’t sure what was going to happen, which caused a lot of insecurity with how the future may look like for us and our families. I thought we didn’t stand a chance in competing with a million-dollar company to buy the park ourselves. But with little motivation and by taking a chance, we came together as a community.”
Resident ownership occurs when owners of manufactured homes form a non-profit membership cooperative to purchase their community when it becomes available for sale. Without resident ownership, homeowners risk eviction when a community is sold to a new owner who may convert the land to other uses or impose higher land rents over which the homeowners have no control.
“Family Redwood Park exemplifies resident self-determination—they control the land and will be able to permanently control their housing costs,” said Rose Ojeda, Manufactured Housing and Cooperative Development Center Director for CASA of Oregon. “This will be our 26th resident-owned community and we will continue, working side-by-side with resident leaders, to look for more opportunities to preserve manufactured dwelling parks as affordable housing.”
