Carlos Rincón and Sara Varela see the impact of their investment in the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund every day.
“As an investor, I believe that money shouldn't just make returns but build something,” Carlos said. “Here in Portsmouth, there is a manufactured-home park where families are able to live in a place where it's too expensive to live. So we see the impact every day and that impact is something that we value.”
Carlos and Sara live in Newcastle, N.H., just a few miles from the resident-owned community, called Woodbury Cooperative, that was purchased by residents and established in 2017 in Portsmouth.
In 2023, five new, affordable manufactured homes were added to the park as part of a $1.5 million improvement project that also included replacements for the cooperative’s aging water and sewer systems, an upgrade to its electrical system, and expanding its access road. The project was a collaboration between the Community Loan Fund and five other local and federal funders.
“It's nice to know that there's something so close to where we live that represents the organization around here,” Sara said.
As former employees of the Community Loan Fund, Carlos and Sara understand how challenging it is to create affordable housing in the state’s most expensive region, Rockingham County. (Sara also served on our board.) They see their investment, made in 2015, as an accelerator for creating change locally and statewide.
“When I look at the programs of the Community Loan Fund — with resident-owned communities, with loans for manufactured homes, with loans for small businesses — I see it's not abstract; it's something real. I see a roof on somebody's house for a family. I see a loan for somebody to expand their business. And those things make communities strong and connected,” Carlos explained.
Sara also values one of the Community Loan Fund’s founding philosophies, that including coaching and advising in loan services improves borrower success.
“It's not only about offering [borrowers] money, but the technical assistance, the networking, the connections — the social capital that the Community Loan Fund brings with it is unparalleled to any other financial institution,” she said.
Thank you to Carlos, Sara, and more than 630 other investors who have chosen to invest locally in the Community Loan Fund to build stronger and more self-reliant communities while they earn financial and social returns.