enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Dan Dineen used to rent this lot in Skandia North, West Ossipee, N.H. When the site went up for sale two years ago, residents sought the help of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund to buy it.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Harvey Sanderson and Ray Horn work on the water system at the mobile home park. Cooperative ventures depend on volunteers to keep costs down.

MAINE HAS 552 mobile home parks. Those parks include 19,702 units, or households. Census data shows each Maine household has 2.39 people making the mobile home park population about 47,083. Here is how park sizes break down:

FEWER THAN 10 LOTS: 147 parks

FROM 11 TO 40 LOTS: 262 parks

FROM 41 TO 100 LOTS: 89 parks

FROM 101 TO 200 LOTS: 22 parks

MORE THAN 200 LOTS: 14 parks

WEST OSSIPEE, N.H. — Dan Dineen received an unwelcome letter two years ago from the owners of the Skandia North mobile home park, a 52-unit community nestled into a pine grove off Route 16.

The letter announced that the owners were selling the property for $2.2 million – a move that almost certainly meant a major lot-rental increase for the residents, mostly retirees living on fixed incomes.

Rather than accepting that fate, park residents turned to the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund. With financing and technical assistance from the fund, the residents bought the park themselves.

That kind of action has inspired a Maine organization to launch its own program for mobile home park residents. The Genesis Fund, a nonprofit group that supports affordable housing ventures, has hired an organizer to work with park residents across Maine, offering technical assistance and help with financing so they can form cooperatives to purchase parks as they come on the market.

"Mobile homes are one of the few unsubsidized forms of low-income or affordable housing," said Heidi Shott, spokeswoman for the fund. "So, to be able to inform people and enable them to take control of the place where they live is very important."

Since 1983, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, which promotes economic development and affordable housing, has helped to organize 88 resident-owned mobile home parks. That's nearly 20 percent of the mobile home communities in the Granite State.

A recent study by the University of New Hampshire shows that homes sell faster and for more money in resident-owned parks, and that they attract better loan rates from lenders.

Residents in cooperatively owned parks own the land they live on, as well as their homes, and they make their own decisions about lot rental prices, improvements and maintenance to protect their investments.

"I want to control what happens to me," said Dineen, vice president of the homeowners' cooperative. "The only way I can control what happens to me is if I'm the guy who's in charge."

Maine has 552 mobile home parks scattered from Kittery to Madawaska, with a total of 19,700 lots. All are owned by individuals or corporations. The largest, Bay Bridge Estates in Brunswick, has 493 lots. But most are much smaller, with 77 percent of the parks having 40 or fewer lots.

Shott said a growing number of parks are changing hands or being closed and redeveloped as land values escalate and real estate entrepreneurs look for new investments.

"Lots of mobile home parks are being bought up by out-of-state investors," she said. "They are consolidating parks, buying from Mom and Pop owners and hiring local property managers."

The fund has hired Yvonne Mickles, who formerly worked on programs for the homeless at Maine State Housing Authority, as a community organizer. She has made contact with residents at a few parks around the state to educate them about cooperatives and how they work.

"We're bringing them along step by step," Mickles said. "There's a lot of kitchen table talk and meeting with people over tea."

In a cooperative, members set lot fees themselves, based on how much money needs to be raised to maintain water and sewer systems, plow roads and provide other desired services. Because the co-op does not need to make a profit on top of maintenance costs, rents are likely to be lower and more stable.

Mickles began work only recently, and no residents in Maine have yet decided to form a cooperative and make a bid on their park.

But in New Hampshire, Dineen, the park resident in West Ossipee, said he thinks cooperative ownership is the best way to go.

"If you own the park, you have a vested interest in what's going on," he said.

That vested interest was on display last Friday at Skandia North, where Dineen lives. In a small outbuilding at the rear of the complex, marked...