Before the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund began lending to low-income residents 25 years ago, owning a manufactured home and the land it sat on was tricky. Short-term, high-interest loans made it nearly impossible.

But the game has changed since, at least for New Hampshire residents who've worked with the loan fund. The private nonprofit has helped homeowners in 93 manufactured housing communities across the state buy land rights to operate their parks as community-run cooperatives. Since 2002, the organization has provided homebuyers with access to fixed-rate mortgages on those manufactured homes.

That practice - the first of its kind in the U.S. - has been so successful that it recently won the group a $5 million, low-interest loan from the Wachovia NEXT award for opportunity finance. The loan fund was praised for its knowledge of the market and "pragmatic and visionary" approach that "has the potential to change mortgage financing in the manufactured home sector," the award said.

In addition to the loan, the Concord-based organization, which employs about 50 people, won a $500,000 grant to expand the mission and demonstrate the benefits to other mainstream lenders. On top of its affordable housing programs, the fund offers loans to community facilities, such as day care centers, and micro-credit for small-business owners.

"One of the reasons some people don't get to participate in the economy enough is not because they're low-income; it's because they don't have access to credit . . . responsible credit, credit that's good for them, credit that's leveraging being part of the economy," said Julie Eades, the loan fund's president. "We're trying to prove to other lenders that this can be financed just like anything else."

Eades, 56, said that the loan will allow the program to expand to more people and that certain projects won't be limited by lack of money. Proof that the model could survive even in a downward economy is reassuring, she said.

Eades said she's seen the market shift since she began the fund in 1984. People are more interested in the market and paying better attention to where their money goes, she said. More money comes into the organization from individual lenders, she said.

"People used to ask me what I did for a living, and then would see how quickly they could end the conversation because it's about money and it's about the economy," Eades said. "Now people are asking me, 'So what's happening out there, and what does it mean?' People are thinking about things differently, and one small result is that more people are lending to us."