Nonprofit awarded $1.65 million for community purchases
A Missoula-based nonprofit is using federal grant money to try to protect low-income neighborhoods in Montana from being lost to commercial development.
The Montana Community Development Corp. announced on Sept. 18 that it was awarded $1.65 million from a U.S. Treasury incentive program. The money will be added to a loan fund dedicated to resident-owned community lending.
This is actually the seventh consecutive year that the Montana Community Development Corp. has received the award after a competitive application process.
“We’re doing a good job of portraying that the fund is really helping communities in Montana,” said Dave Glaser, president of Montana Community Development Corp. “We’re helping mobile-home communities purchase the land they’re on top of so they have ownership in the place they live.”
The resident-owned community funds are typically awarded to a cooperative formed by residents of the community to purchase the land.
In 2013, Montana Community Development helped the River Acres community in Missoula buy the trailer court that the owner had hoped to sell. As a result, 68 residents were able to retain their 31 homes in the community.
In the last two years, Montana Community Development has done the same for the Northwood Community in Ronan and the Trailer Terrace in Great Falls. The development group said it has saved 421 people from possible eviction with the use of this capital.
Glaser said Montana Community Development Corp. has spent just over $2 million to help resident-owned communities so far. The capital given is a loan that community cooperatives will have to pay back.
The development corporation is currently looking for new projects to help gain ownership of their community.
“We have a pipeline of resident-owned communities and trailer parks that are in the process of forming co-ops that are hoping to purchase their lots,” Glaser said.
Glaser said the development corporation has received interest from communities from the Billings, Bozeman, and even Boise areas. The group intends to spread the capital across several communities, he said.
Montana Community Development Corp. is currently at work raising additional capital to help purchase communities in the Montana and Idaho regions. Glaser said he expects the group to raise as much as $20 million in coming years.
“That should be enough to for us to get going in a serious way to address those needs and provide stable affordable housing for low income people in Montana and Idaho,” Glaser said.
The development group works with small and large business development projects, as well as resident owned communities. The group was involved in developing the Red Lion Hotel that was completed earlier this year in Polson. The commercial funds come from a New Tax Market Credit program by the U.S. Treasury, which encourages the investment of new private capital in low-income communities to generate economic activity.
This year, 374 organizations applied for the fund from the U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions program, requesting a total of $435 million. Only $160 million was allocated to 152 groups, ranging from $80,000 to $2 million.
For more information on the Montana Community Development Corporation, visit www.mtcdc.org.
Reporter Seaborn Larson can be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.