For 28 years, Kelly Jensen has lived in Paradise Village, a mobile home park at the end of the main road in Johnstown, Colorado. It’s where she raised her daughter, but she avoided talking about it.
“It used to be, you hated to tell anyone where you live,” she said in an interview with Moneywise. “People move into Johnstown and they think they’re above you. We’re not trailer trash.”
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Now she’s proud to talk about her community.
That’s because three years ago, she and her neighbors took ownership not only of the name Paradise Village, but the land itself, buying both from the former landlord for $4 million.
How did they manage it? They seized an opportunity and got funding from an unexpected source, avoiding the fate of a growing number of trailer-park residents who face eviction.
At a time when private-equity firms are encroaching on mobile home parks, these residents proved that regular people can literally take ownership of their communities and keep out developers.
An unexpected opportunity
When the couple who originally bought Paradise Village passed away, their children inherited it. The family decided to sell in 2022, motivated by soaring local real estate prices.
That got Paradise Village residents worrying. Most owned their mobile homes, but not the land, leaving them vulnerable to a future landlord’s whims.
Many feared a developer would take over and their homes would be moved to make way for new buildings. The City of Johnstown assured them the land would remain zoned for mobile-home use, but that didn’t allay their fears.
Then something totally unexpected happened.
“Rumors started circulating that the owners wanted to sell to us and keep everyone in their homes,” Jensen recalls. “No one thought that was possible.”
Turned out it was not only possible, but a legal requirement of sale. As of 2020, Colorado law requires that any mobile-home park owner planning to sell must give residents the first option to purchase.
The family went a step further, connecting park residents with an adviser who could guide them through the process of purchase. That adviser pointed them to an organization called ROC USA, a non-profit that provides financing for mobile home park residents to buy their land outright.
On a cold April evening in 2022, Paradise Village residents held a meeting outside — there was no place big enough to hold them all — to learn more about what would be involved in the purchase. It was daunting.
A lot of mobile home park residents who attempted similar purchases in Colorado have met with rejection from landlords who prefer selling to developers. Thankfully, in this case the sellers actually wanted to support the residents in making the purchase.
“We talked until dark and finally ended up agreeing to proceed,” Jensen says, noting that 80% of the residents voted in favor of the purchase.
In just 90 days, they completed a land survey, arranged financing with ROC USA and established bylaws, rules and policies. They closed the deal in October 2022, becoming a resident-owned community.
“It is amazing to think that a group of ordinary people can accomplish such a feat — but it is possible,” Jensen says.
It was definitely a co-operative effort. In fact, ROCs are a unique form of co-op housing.
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Neighbors who buy mobile home parks together
There are mobile home park co-ops nationwide. ROC USA didn’t finance all of them, but it’s one of the biggest organizations supporting the movement, associated with 340 resident-owned communities in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The communities pay ROC USA back by collecting monthly fees from residents. These are like HOA fees issued by the community’s board, covering not just the mortgage but property taxes, utilities, maintenance and more.
Jensen’s share is $695 a month — less than half the $1,600 it would cost to rent the average one-bedroom apartment in her area and much less than the mortgage on a bigger home in Johnstown.
“And you’re not going to get hit with a 3 to 5% rent increase,” she adds.
She notes that these fees aren’t designed to turn a profit, but to ensure stability — including building a reserve fund.
“The profit is that you’re safe and secure,” Jensen says. “You own the land and your home. No one else can come in and buy it from underneath you to build apartments or a strip mall.”
That even applies to fellow residents, who can sell their homes at Paradise Village, but not the land, which is owned collectively. There are 40 families in Paradise Village — each of whom own 1/40th of the land.
Jensen is currently president of the Paradise Village board. She says residents are all equally responsible for maintaining the land.
“It can be hard to grasp when someone is so used to being told, ‘I’m your landlord,’” she said. “Now we’re all owners and we’re all in this together.”
She says she’s noticed more of them pitching in on clean-up days, more neighbors going on walks together and kids playing with one another in the past couple of years.
“There’s more of a camaraderie,” she says. “We all get along better because there’s a bigger stake now.”
Jensen still cringes a bit saying the name Paradise Village, but only because she thinks it’s hokey.
“The only reason we kept the name Paradise Village is to make sure pizza got delivered to the right place,” she says with a laugh.
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