APPLETON, Wis. – Prospera CU is working with residents of April Aire Mobile Home Park to find them new homes after a buyer for the failed commercial property failed to emerge at Monday’s foreclosure sale, leaving the credit union with ownership.
Prospera bought the property at foreclosure for $250,000 and has at least that much invested in repairs, according to Kenneth Eiden, president of the $150 million credit union. The member business loans for April Aire were made through the credit union’s CUSO, Business Lending Group, then participated among Prospera CU and two partners in the CUSO, CitizensFirst CU and Fox Communities CU.
The credit union has been making repairs to the trailer park’s water and sewage systems since taking over the property last August and is now working to relocate residents, said Eiden. Most of the homes have been declared unfit for habitation. The nine-acre property is zoned for commercial use and probably will be sold for development after it is cleaned up.
“We’re working with local community leaders and a task force to relocate all of the people from the site to a more acceptable alternative,” Eiden told The Credit Union Journal yesterday.
There are 22 of the original 48 mobile homes remaining, with 63 of the original 125 people left in the remaining homes. “Many of them have sites to move to,” said Eiden. “The great thing about our community is the outpouring of resources to help these individuals,” he said. “They probably would have fallen through the cracks if we had not stepped in to do something.”
