Michigan Community Land Cooperative (MCLC) develops member-owned, permanently affordable housing across the state of Michigan while supporting communities in pursuing innovative, people-centric businesses. Their mission is to expand both the number and diversity of housing cooperatives, include more communities in cooperative ownership, and to foster cooperative behavior and education.
Their origin lies in the outcome of a series of meetings of cooperators from across Michigan who shared a mutual desire for more properties to be permanently reserved for use as cooperative housing. Originally brought together by NCBA Hall of Famer Jim Jones, the group included members and leaders of the Inter-Cooperative Council at Ann Arbor, the Grand Rapids Alliance of Cooperative Communities (GRACC), Spring Collective, and many others, who came together at the Spartan Housing Cooperative in East Lansing to consider founding an organization that could buy properties to be operated as housing co-ops over the long-term. MCLC was created in October 2023 thanks to this collaboration.
“What’s most fascinating to me is that MCLC is an outgrowth of the student housing cooperative community in Michigan, and its original core included four NASCO Hall of Fame inductees,” says Dave Rugg, Secretary-Treasurer of MCLC.
MCLC properties are owned and governed by the members who live there, which keeps their cooperatives affordable for every resident now, and in the future. Their board includes members and cooperative professionals from around the country, and they acquire property, structure it as permanent cooperative ownership, and support the members who run it. This way the affordability doesn’t expire, get sold off, or depend on a subsidy. After obtaining their 501(c)(3) charitable status and fundraising, MCLC purchased its first properties in November 2024 and has continued purchasing land and properties to give communities permanent and affordable housing. In August 2025, MCLC received a $550,000 mortgage loan from the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund to finance the acquisition of the Atlantis House, a 15-bedroom property located in Grand Rapids, Michigan that was being leased by GRACC. This purchase was executed to support GRACC, and it fulfilled one of MCLC’s original objectives. Unfortunately, GRACC decided in February 2026 that the project was too risky for them, and Atlantis House died. MCLC decided to retain the property and create a new cooperative, which has recently been named “Ziigwan,” an Anishinaabe word referencing the renewal of spring, by its members.
MCLC’s current project is creating a new cooperative community in Grand Rapids’ Belknap Neighborhood. Starting with the seven vacant lots purchased by MCLC in November 2024 plus two adjoining buildings acquired at that time by Jim Jones, MCLC sponsored creation of the 11-member Polaris community in 2025. MCLC started leasing the Polaris buildings, and Jim acquired an adjoining duplex that houses five people, in 2026. MCLC is working on acquiring all three buildings in 2027 and then adding additional housing to expand the community to 23 members.
In July 2026, MCLC joined NCBA to continue building their network within the cooperative space.
“I appreciate the national lobbying work done by NCBA to promote cooperative housing and the resources NCBA provides through ‘Co-op Weekly’ Dave says “Like public radio, all of this is only possible through member support, and we wanted MCLC to be a part of that support.”
NCBA is proud to have members like MCLC, whose core values are shaped by the cooperative principles and whose work is resulting in more communities getting to experience affordable housing through the power of cooperative ownership.