This commentary was written by Stephen Hamlin, who has lived in Burlington’s North Avenue Co-op for over 39 years, and is president of the Board of Directors at North Avenue Cooperative. North Avenue Cooperative is a resident-owned manufactured housing community in the city’s New North End.
We the residents of the North Avenue Cooperative purchased our 116-home community from a private owner in 2015, and have successfully operated as a resident-owned community for the past seven years.
I am writing today to urge Sen. Patrick Leahy, as chairman of the U.S Senate Appropriations Committee, to support the PRICE program. This program would make a drastic difference in the lives of over 3,400 Vermont homeowners like me and my neighbors.
PRICE is a $500 million grant program specific to resident-owned communities like ours and nonprofit manufactured home communities to support critical infrastructure improvements and resident purchases. The U.S House Appropriations Committee voted to include the PRICE program in the fiscal year 2023 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bill.
This vote shows that the U.S House recognizes the dire need for access to grants and low-cost loans for manufactured housing communities across the country. Now, it is the Senate’s turn to show its support for this crucial source of affordable housing.
We are proud to own our homes and to collectively own our community. Owning the land under our homes means that our community cannot be sold off to a private buyer, or closed, making our cooperative a source of perpetually affordable housing in the area. This is not the case in manufactured housing communities owned by private or corporate landlords.
As a resident-owned community, all lot rents are set based on annual operating expenses, and any profit is invested back into necessary infrastructure projects and upgrades to the community. We as residents make the decisions about how to manage our community, voting on everything from the annual budget to community rules. Thus, problems caused by years of deferred maintenance and underinvestment in our infrastructure under the previous owner are now also up to us as residents to address. This community is our home, and it is important to us to make sure that the infrastructure we rely on each day is safe, sustainable and up to code. Currently, though, this is not the case.
The last time our underground infrastructure was upgraded was nearly 30 years ago, and it does not meet the health and safety standards required today. The electrical wiring that connects our homes to power sources throughout the community should be in conduit underground; instead, it feeds into a trench. Years of neglect have taken their toll on the water and sewer infrastructure that services our homes. For example, there are pipes broken due to age and root systems. The proximity of the pipes underground is not only up to current codes, but also poses a serious health risk to residents should they break and leak into each other. We do not have any stormwater drainage in our community, meaning that our roads deteriorate at a much faster rate, adding additional expenses to our annual budget.
We purchased our community seven years ago, and the first thing the elected volunteer board of directors took on was a detailed upgrade plan of our neglected water, sewer, electrical and stormwater systems. After seven years of design, planning and permitting, it will cost $3.5-5 million to complete this project. North Avenue and other resident-owned communities like ours do not have access to low-cost loans like conventional homeowners or corporate MHC owners do. We have cultivated relationships with local funders such as the Burlington Housing Trust Fund and have secured or are in the process of applying for $1.7 million in funding for this project. We have saved $200,000 in reserves, and have even applied for ARPA funding. But it is a lot of work for this small group of volunteers to continue searching high and low for funds that other housing groups and nonprofits also compete for. The PRICE program is specifically designed for resident-owned communities and for projects like ours.
We are low- and middle-income residents who are supporting a safe and healthy community with our collective resources. We deserve public investment in our neighborhoods and homes, just like private companies and conventional homeowners have access to. There are 15 other resident-owned communities in Vermont, plus many more nonprofit and privately owned parks, all of which either currently or will require upgrades to their infrastructure for the health and safety of their residents, and who will need to apply to existing funding sources for the same reason.
I ask you to join me in urging Sen. Leahy to include the PRICE program in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bill. This program would be a game changer for North Avenue Cooperative, and for communities like ours across Vermont and the country. Grants like this would allow us to achieve safe and reliable water, wastewater and electrical systems without passing the cost onto residents. North Avenue Cooperative offers a permanent source of affordable housing, and the PRICE program will ensure that we remain safe, sustainable and affordable for years to come.