park can be converted. If it can be, CASA meets with the landlord with an offer to purchase the property as a co-op. Afterwards, Julie and her coworkers approach residents, often accompanied by the landlord, to gauge their interest in a conversion. Finally, Julie sets up the first of approximately six meetings with residents. modular home communities work in the community and support families; others are retired. Most live on fixed incomes. A good number have careers in forestry and so enjoy the closeness to nature of park living. Frequently these parks have prime locations, such as along the banks of the Rogue River, a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. With little financial flexibility, the renters are particularly vulnerable to shifts in the economic climate. Between 2001 and 2007, when sixtynine manufactured housing parks closed in Oregon, 2,800 residents were displaced. "In every case," Amanda Waldroupe writes in a 2012 Street Roots article profiling CASA, "the park owners sold the park to companies or individuals who demolished the parks and redeveloped the land." To mitigate further displacement, CASA started converting manufactured parks into co-ops in 2007, capping residents' monthly payments by helping them turn rents into mortgages. Julie began rolling up her sleeves with the team in 2010, working directly with residents throughout the conversion process, as well as providing support thereafter. Says Julie, "If I can make that happen for other people, I've fulfilled my job as a human ecologist." The process The multi-step process takes months. After finding out about low-income parks from the real estate brokers with whom they have developed a relationship — and who receive a commission from selling a park — the CASA team ascertains that the COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Meetings are held in whatever large, free community space is available — fire stations, libraries, gymnasiums, or resident homes. "We bring an easel," Julie says. "We hold icebreaker activities, and we encourage democratic decision making right away." At these initial meetings, Julie and a coworker help community members elect a board to act as a liaison between CASA and the park community, and set up a structure for potential lenders. Once the board is elected, Julie and the coworker offer a four-hour training on community development, real estate transaction, and how the organization should be structured.
Assistance Corporation — lend specifically to organizations like CASA. Tony Tony Weisbecker is 68 years old, retired, a deft conversationalist with a twenty-two-year background in talk radio. He describes himself as someone who never, ever changes his mind. He was one of CASA's most outspoken resident opponents. Like many residents at the outset of a conversion, Tony was dubious of the financial strain it could entail. He told Julie when they met, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy." Not long after his neighbors approved a co-op conversion, says Tony, it finally sunk in: "What's done is done. I can fight it. Or I can work with it." Over time, Julie earned Tony's trust through her ability to listen to a diversity of opinions and mediate, and he began to see Julie as someone who authentically wants to help — not control — his community. He has since become one of CASA's most loyal supporters.
Julie is aware that even though CASA's goal is to help, a co-op can be a sea change to residents, and many at first are rightfully wary. Fortunately, after the first or second meeting, when Julie has laid out the math and proven CASA's willingness to find funding for the purchase, trust cements and residents are eager to take the helm. The math Though a sale to residents is likely to be less lucrative than one to a developer, the incentive for landlords is the capital gains tax exemption they receive if they sell to a nonprofit. CASA's co-ops qualify as nonprofits. Other financial aid for park conversions comes from the state of Oregon and nonprofit lenders. The state has made a commitment to affordable housing. Most of the existing co-ops have received a $600,000 grant for the preservation of manufactured housing. Additionally, nonprofit lenders — such as Network for Affordable Housing, ROC USA Capital, and Rural Community
After initially opposing the conversion of his community, resident Tony Weisbecker has become an advocate of Julia Massa '93 and CASA. Photos: ROC USA/Mike Bullard 29