Mountain Express:

When Mirian Porras moved to the Emma community 11 years ago, she never expected to end up running a property management company, let alone one that handles the homes and businesses of her neighbors and friends.

Her background is in community organizing around immigrant rights. After years of working in the neighborhood, however, she caught wind of a new trend: Residents of mobile home parks in the area were coming together to create housing co-ops as vehicles for jointly purchasing those properties. And in 2018, Porras and her neighbors formed Las Casitas Mobile Home Park Cooperative.

But it didn’t take long for Porras to realize that her new situation provided benefits beyond enabling her to own a share of the property: The co-op also offered community members dignified jobs. And with her own basic needs covered, she wanted to do more.

These days, Porras is a member of two real estate co-ops and a housing co-op; she’s also a worker-owner of Chispas, a property management cooperative that maintains several buildings owned by neighborhood collectives. The model that’s developed is unique, she says, and it has helped create a better quality of life for Emma’s working class residents.

“Among our network, we have been able to create more economic opportunities and specifically focus on the needs of our community,” she explains. “We are not outsiders — we live in this community. We care for this community, and we are developing something that will last a long time.”

Read the article: "Co-op network grows community-based businesses" (Molly Horak, Mountain Xpress, August 10, 2020)