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Jefferson Public Radio: California mobile home park residents face persistent PFAS water contamination

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Man-made chemicals known as PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are used to make a lot of modern products. They’ve also been linked to health impacts including cancer. Despite legislation, addressing PFAS contamination at small water systems remains a challenge in California.

Kimberlee has lived at the Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park in Red Bluff, California for over 30 years.

She has plenty of fond memories of this place, near a bend in the Sacramento River and surrounded by walnut and olive tree fields in Tehama County. Just behind the property is a ranch that’s home to the famous bucking bull Red Rock, who she...

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From the same folks that brought you Covid-mania comes the new item we should all fear: PFAS. I’ve never heard of it before, but I did find this first item on Google of interest:

The industrial use of PFAS – sometimes called “forever chemicals”, since they don't degrade in nature – has been so prevalent in the last decades that 99 percent of all humans, including fetuses, have measurable levels of PFAS in their bloodstreams.

If 99% of all Americans already have PFAS then exactly what are we worried about? I looked up Missouri and PFAS is not even regulated in my state nor do they believe it poses any health risk at all. So I guess the correct title would be:

WHY DOES ANYONE LIVE IN CALIFORNIA?

South Floride Sun Sentinel: Fort Lauderdale upgrade? 978-unit apartment complex could take place of old-time trailer park

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FORT LAUDERDALE — A mammoth apartment complex with enough units for nearly 1,000 families would bring new life to a forlorn property that served as one of Fort Lauderdale’s largest mobile home parks for nearly six decades.

The Pan American Estates trailer park, once home to more than 200 families, would be transformed by a new 25-acre development that calls for 10 buildings ranging from five to eight stories. The land at 150 NW 68th St. sits south of McNab Road and west of Andrews Avenue, several blocks north of Cypress Creek Road not far from the Pompano Beach border.

The 978-unit project would be completed in 2031 and developed in three...

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Our thoughts on this story:

People always ask why I am able to predict the future with such accuracy. It’s simply because I try to employ common sense. I wrote about a decade ago that mobile home parks – in the absence of doubling or tripling lot rent – would all ultimately be bulldozed to make way for apartments. The reason is simple. You can stack apartments four or five high on the same ground space as one mobile home park lot. So here’s the reality of that prediction coming to fruition in Fort Lauderdale where one single 200 lot mobile home park can hold 978 new luxury apartments.

The correct title to this article should be:

LOW MOBILE HOME PARK LOT RENTS YIELD REDEVELOPMENT: IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

The Guardian: ‘It’s like winning the lottery’: the mobile home owners buying the land they live on

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Bev Adrian, a retired career placement counselor for people with disabilities, lives in Woodlawn Terrace, a mobile home park just outside Minneapolis, Minnesota. The nearby streets are full of bustling local businesses – a Sota Boys Smoke Shop, a Pump N Munch Gas – but Woodlawn is a quiet park tucked away under maples and pines.

Adrian moved there four years ago, coincidentally right as Woodlawn’s owner was looking to sell. Woodlawn’s landlord was well liked, but for years the park’s residents had been hearing rumors about possible sales to much less friendly owners.

“People lived here in fear,” Adrian says, “because these places are...

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Ah, the Guardian. What a great publication – at least when it comes to losing money. These folks can’t help but lose more money year after year. Here’s the current results straight from Google:

The publisher told staff in a quarterly update, seen by Press Gazette, that it anticipated a cash outflow of approximately £39m in the 2023/24 financial year (which runs to the end of March), versus £17m in the previous year, due to the revenue decline and cost of investment in technology.Feb 12, 2024

Maybe the reason that nobody reads or advertises in the Guardian is that the reporters are very bad at what they do. Check out this example of such basic errors:

Mobile home parks, also known as trailer parks, are officially and more accurately called manufactured housing parks. Prefab homes are substantial constructions; once placed in a park, more than 80% of them are never moved.

The writer can’t even figure out the correct name of “manufactured housing community” and that the homes are anything but defined as “prefab”. Even scarier that person’s boss can’t even figure it out as I assume they at least attempt to fact check the stuff they print.

Later in the same article they take great offense at my statement from some past article or speech that “there’s a huge number of poor people and there’s more poor people, like, every day.” I’m not sure how that’s shocking since the U.S. government’s own stats confirm that “there are more poor people every day”. Here are the numbers, straight from Google: “The U.S. poverty rate saw its largest one-year increase in history in 2022 wth 12.4% of Americans now living in poverty. According to new 2022 data from the U.S. census, this is an increase from 7.4% in 2021.

The correct title for this article would be:

WRITERS WANTED: NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY

ABC12: Thetford Township mobile home park operating without a license

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THETFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WJRT)- A Genesee County community wants action and answers, claiming they've dealt with poor conditions for too long.

ABC12 has learned the owners of the North Morris Estates Mobile Home Park in Thetford Township are operating without a license and are under investigation by the Michigan State Police.

"This is what it looks like on a good day," said longtime resident Theo Gantos as he held up a mason jar of brown water.

He said he and his wife have to filter and purify their water constantly.

That is when it even works.

According to Gantos, the community is a victim of frequent water outages.

"Residents have to...

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Our thoughts on this story:

So the new owner buys a dilapidated mobile home park and attempts to bring it back to life, and even provides a very accurate narrative of the project and the goals:

Since purchasing North Morris Estates MHC, we have renovated many homes, added new homes, removed all unsalvageable homes, are in the process of completing multiple major utility infrastructure repairs, and also catching up on years of other deferred maintenance inherited from previous ownership. We are working closely with all regulatory agencies to ensure the community is brought into and remains in compliance. We also have a strict entrance process to ensure all residents meet our guidelines, adhere to fair housing laws and will agree to be an important part of a quiet and enjoyable neighborhood. We are excited about the progress we are making and appreciate the positive feedback we have received. We look forward to continuing to work with the surrounding community to make North Morris Estates MHC a great place to live.

The new owner did not create the park’s current condition, instead they are the solution. Meanwhile the residents seemed determined to try and get back at the new owners for raising rents and demanding that rules be obeyed. The buyer is a well-known and well-respected park operator and the park looks very nice in the photos. Clearly, common sense would tell you that what’s really going on here is that the residents hope to gain an advantage by pretending that the park is in abhorrent condition and the state and city seem to be totally on-board with all of this manipulation. What the residents will soon find out is that the city is more than happy to get this park torn down and redeveloped into a nicer use and they have effectively given them the ammunition they always dreamed of to do so.

The correct title to this article would be:

FOOLISH PARK RESIDENTS DEMAND TO BE HOMELESS – AND THE CITY IS HAPPY TO OBLIGE

Cape Cod Times: Pocasset mobile home residents take buyer claim to Appeals Court

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Pocasset Park residents are challenging a ruling by the Barnstable Superior Court designating Crown, a Wyoming investment firm, as the rightful buyer of the Bourne mobile home park in the latest chapter of the four-year-long legal battle.

The Pocasset Park Association claimed the trial court imposed a heightened burden of proof during April 17 oral arguments in the Massachusetts Appeals Court. The association also claimed in its appeal brief that a “mathematical error” occurred in the trial court.

The right of first refusal requires residents to provide “reasonable evidence” that at least 51% of homes in the community approve the sale,...

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I’m not sure who’s giving legal advice to these residents – or paying the bill – but here are their odds on appeal:

The losing side can then elect to petition the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. However, the SJC only accepted 12 of the 393 further appellate review applications considered in 2023.

I’m sure some non-profit is behind all of this, but when your odds of even having the appeal picked up by the court is 3%, it’s probably not a great idea to spend $50,000+ in legal fees to give it a try.

This case is simple. I wrote about this same story months ago. The bottom line is that the residents did not even come close to having enough verified signatures to trigger the right of first refusal. The judge had no difficulty in telling them so.

The correct headline would be:

RESIDENTS WASTE MORE NON-PROFIT LEGAL FEES IN MAKING FOOLS OF THEMSELVES

Times-Call: Boulder County to repair some homes in mobile home parks

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Boulder County has initiated a pilot program that will repair and rehabilitate more than 30 homes in Boulder’s Columbine and Orchard Grove mobile home parks.

Mobile home communities often house lower-income residents, and many homes in these communities are older and in need of repairs. Last year, Boulder County officials surveyed hundreds of local mobile and manufactured home park residents in Longmont and Lafayette and found that more than more than half of respondents (59%) said their homes were in fair to poor condition.

That survey also showed mobile home park residents are disproportionately people of color, primarily Latino, and...

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It seems like a good idea, until you see how much they allocated to the program:

The county has set aside $400,000 in American Rescue Plan Act dollars for the project.

At an average renovation cost of $10,000 (and you know the non-profits will blow that up to around $50,000) you’re talking so few homes that it’s not even really worth mentioning.

The correct title should be:

BOULDER TALKS WOKE BUT FUNDING IS A JOKE

Petaluma Argus Courier: Petaluma’s Little Woods residents brace for more change as arbitration ends

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On an overcast morning in late April, about 30 residents from Petaluma’s Little Woods Mobile Villa filed onto a bus headed for Stockton.

The group was going to their mobile home park’s property management offices to picket proposed rent hikes of over 300% and threats of park closure. The April 23 demonstration coincided with the first day of arbitration hearings where the fate of their proposed rent hikes would be determined.

Some of these residents have lived at Little Woods for decades, raising their children and grandchildren in the all-ages park. Residents, many Spanish speaking or bilingual, include teachers, construction workers,...

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Our thoughts on this story:

You can already see where this is headed.
 
The correct title would be:
 
PARK CLOSING FOR REDEVELOPMENT AS SOON AS PROTESTERS GET OUT OF THE ROAD

Urban Land: Tiny Houses with a Big Impact: Veterans Community Project Combats Homelessness

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America’s 36,000 homeless veterans, who constitute roughly 5 percent of the homeless population, deserve to move from homeless to housed as much as any affected group. Many homeless veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); and every day, 18 homeless veterans commit suicide. Most are not connected to any support services, indicating that homeless veterans need far better services.

Relatively few homeless veterans—ranging from 25 percent to 40 percent, depending upon the transitional housing facility—move from temporary housing to permanent housing.

Enter the Veterans Community Project, a charitable organization founded in 2016...

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FOR ADULTS ONLY:

I
’m not going to say one bad thing about this concept, because this is a smart strategic plan and they are doing a good job. In my opinion, this is the template for how to truly help these people: merging tiny homes with a sense of shared community. And I’m glad this is devoted to veterans as I think they need to be rewarded for doing some of the tough work that civilians cannot even imagine. That being said, this is not a mobile home story as these units are built on concrete foundations and cannot, by definition, go in mobile home parks.

WBIR: 'There's no place to rent' || Maryville homeowners running out of options as eviction date looms

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MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Maryville homeowners in the Thornhill Mobile Home Community said they're scrambling as their eviction date inches closer.

An attorney told 10News this week that the mobile homes of people who've been evicted from living on rented lots can eventually be turned over to the landlord. 

10News spoke to people in the community earlier this month, who said they were shocked to receive eviction notices in March. Not everyone at the park is being evicted,  but homeowners said most people who own mobile homes rent the land the homes sit on. 

Legal Aid of East Tennessee Attorney Darrell Winfree said he's been helping some...

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"I've called, I've went and looked, there's no place to rent," she said. "Unless you have three times your income. And we are on a fixed income. And we don't make that kind of money.

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Yes, that’s right. You will not find any place in America where you can live if you can’t show at least three times that amount in income. That leaves you with three options: 1) move to a less expensive place to live 2) earn more money or 3) get on a government program such as Section 8. Anyone who tells you differently is lying to you.

The Lever: The Homeowners’ Rebellion

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Bev Adrian, a retired career placement counselor for people with disabilities, lives in Woodlawn Terrace, a mobile home park just outside Minneapolis, Minnesota. The nearby streets are full of bustling local commerce — a Sota Boys Smoke Shop, a Pump N Munch Gas — but Woodlawn is a quiet park tucked away under maples and pines. Adrian moved there four years ago, coincidentally right as Woodlawn’s owner was looking to sell. Woodlawn’s landlord was well liked, but for years Woodlawn’s residents had been hearing rumors about possible sales to much less friendly owners. 

“People lived here in fear,” Adrian says, “because these places are just...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Over the last decade, private investors have discovered one very simple thing: owning a manufactured housing park is an incredibly lucrative thing to do. Now, throughout the country, local landlords are making way for out-of-state owners notorious for jacking up rents while letting conditions deteriorate. 

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Well, at least they got it partially right except for one main item. These so-called “out-of-state owners” are the ones injecting millions of dollars into these old parks to bring them back to life. In not a single case have any of them ever “let conditions deteriorate”. How do I know? Well, among other items, these professional owners pay big prices and get big mortgages which require lender property condition reports which then require all types of upgrades. On top of that, these same large owners are bringing in new homes and are constantly raising the park quality to attract and retain good tenants like any smart business people would. This “out-of-state owners make parks physically worse” nonsense is a P.R. stunt by the “residents should own their parks” crowd. And what’s hilarious is that the residents who buy their own parks – those .0000000001% that really pull it off – are the ones that let park conditions normally deteriorate because they have no money for improvements. Hypocrisy anyone?

State of Reform: Maryland governor signs bills aiming to increase access to affordable housing

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed three affordable housing bills into law: House Bill 538 (the Housing Expansion and Affordability Act of 2024); HB 599 (the Housing and Community Development Financing Act of 2024); and HB 693 (the Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act of 2024). The bills fall in line with the Moore Administration’s goal of making the state a more affordable place to live and work. 

During a bill-signing ceremony, Moore said building a stronger housing market is needed to address a housing shortage of 96,000 units statewide.  

“We made the choice to put housing front-and-center this year because we know this issue can’t...

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed three affordable housing bills into law: House Bill 538 (the Housing Expansion and Affordability Act of 2024); HB 599 (the Housing and Community Development Financing Act of 2024); and HB 693 (the Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act of 2024). The bills fall in line with the Moore Administration’s goal of making the state a more affordable place to live and work. 

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Give it up, Wes. There’s no way you can legislate “affordable housing” into existence. It’s the red tape that Maryland has created that makes housing impossibly unaffordable. If you really want to help, then just abolish all the housing regulations and let the free market do its thing – don’t announce even more bureaucratic roadblocks to capitalism. I’m sure Wes knows better but it’s time to buy votes again and this agenda will go absolutely nowhere after the press releases go out, and everybody knows it. Welcome to election season in America!

FOX 5 Alanta: How manufactured homes could solve the housing crisis

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Just over one-third of households in this country rent the home in which they live. And as many as nine out of 10 renters say they hope to one day own their own home.  

But in the past few years, home prices have soared, and loan rates have more than doubled.

So, how do we solve this housing crisis?  FOX 5 real estate expert John Adams says he has the answer.

The median price for a new home in Georgia is $351,000, according to research by Houseo, up more than 6% from a year ago. Under typical conventional financing, a buyer would need a down payment of more than $70,000 and then be prepared to cough up a monthly mortgage payment of about...

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Our thoughts on this story:

NIMBY - or "Not in My Backyard" - opposition is usually based on misperceptions or misguided information based on rumors regarding a project’s impact on its surrounding area. Old memories of "trailer parks" die hard. The truth is that almost all counties in Georgia have used zoning laws to severely restrict the creation of what we all remember as trailer parks. But today’s manufactured homes are nearly indistinguishable from site-built homes, yet they cost only half as much to build.  

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Seriously? You really believe that “manufactured homes are nearly indistinguishable from site-built homes”? The author loses all credibility when they make stupid remarks like that. Biden has been pushing for cities to relax zoning for years now – all to zero effect – because everyone knows that a mobile home park near their home destroys their property values.

OPB: Residents will own soon-to-reopen mobile home park that was destroyed in 2020 wildfire

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This past weekend, community members celebrated the official groundbreaking of the first cooperatively owned mobile home park formed in the Rogue Valley. This fall, families will be returning after the 2020 Almeda Fire destroyed most of the park.

Talent Mobile Estates was a tight-knit group of around 100 households. But when the Almeda Fire destroyed most of the homes, that community was scattered.

Alma Rico lives in one of around 10 homes that didn’t burn down. She said she’s looking forward to her community moving back to the park, including her father.

“We’re rebuilding, but it seemed like it was never going to happen,” Rico said....

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Erica Ledesma co-founded the nonprofit Coalicion Fortaleza, the organization that helped turn this park into a resident-owned cooperative. She said that will be a major tool in rebuilding the community because residents will have a say in how the park is operated. Residents will be able to choose whether or not to be a part of the cooperative. But, Ledesma said opting in will likely come with perks, like a slightly lower rent and getting to have a say in park operations. Ledesma said the rent for mobile home spaces will likely start at under $700 per month. Those funds will pay off the state loan used to purchase the park from its original owners and to pay for a management company to help with things like landscaping, utilities and maintenance. She said rent in resident-owned communities typically doesn’t go up and in all likelihood, the rent will decrease as the loan is paid off in the coming years. The modest manufactured homes that are being installed were funded through a state grant. They’ll be gifted to the new homeowners. Ledesma said first priority will be given to survivors who lost their own manufactured home in the Almeda Fire.

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Taking a nod from the EV industry, this deal has so many subsidies and grants that it’s really unclear who is shouldering the burden and when the bill even actually comes due. As I’ve said for years now, all of these non-profit deals are absolutely dependent on handouts from various groups and everything sounds great until one of them loses interest and then the whole deal goes on the market for sale to a real buyer. It’s going to be really interesting to see how many of these deals – held together with non-profit chewing gum, duct tape and chicken wire – are still in operation a decade from now. As with the resident-owned deal in Palo Alto and San Souci in last week’s issue, none of these transactions should be viewed as a permanent fix.

Sun Sentinel: Mobile home park’s end worsens housing crisis | Letters to the editor

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I am deeply troubled by the closure of Pan American Estates Mobile Home Park in Fort Lauderdale and feel compelled to speak out about the urgent need for action to address the affordable housing crisis. The scenes described in the Sun Sentinel article paint a picture of displacement and gentrification.

As someone deeply invested in the well-being of our city, it concerns me to see over 200 families forced out for another upscale residential development. The loss of affordable housing options such as mobile home parks is becoming all too common in Broward, and Pan American’s closing is a glaring example of this troubling trend. It’s clear...

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Our thoughts on this story:

As someone deeply invested in the well-being of our city, it concerns me to see over 200 families forced out for another upscale residential development. The loss of affordable housing options such as mobile home parks is becoming all too common in Broward, and Pan American’s closing is a glaring example of this troubling trend. It’s clear that profit often takes precedence over residents’ needs. Rezoning to allow for more units at higher density only exacerbates the issue, pushing out those who can least afford alternative housing. The city must monitor and follow up on what happens to these families, ensuring that they are placed in situations equal to or better than previous conditions. It’s unacceptable to expect individuals barely surviving to uproot their lives with weeks’ notice.

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Without much, much higher lot rents, you’re going so see a ton more parks reach the same fate as Pan American Mobile Home Park. As far as the former residents are concerned, they will need to adapt to the reality of the U.S. housing market and, if necessary, move to a cheaper place to live. The new mindset that the government should take care of everyone only has one huge flaw: the U.S. government is flat broke and can’t even afford to support those that it already has a commitment to. I believe the Section 8 waiting list is now something like three years or more. When America is no longer $35 trillion in debt, but actually has no debt and a surplus, then you can throw out ideas like the government making sure that every person has a nice home to live in and food on the table. Switzerland, which has no debt, can make things like that happen. We are currently the poorest nation in the world based on indebtedness and for some weird reason people still think that Uncle Sam is their rich relative who lives under a bridge in a tent because he’s just eccentric.

The U.S. Sun: FORCED OUT I’m facing no other choice but to demolish my tiny home of 49 years after eviction threat – I’ve done nothing wrong

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A TINY home resident said she has been forced off the land her family home has been on and could have to demolish it.

Marjorie Begay said residents of a trailer park village in Moab, Utah, by the state border with Colorado, were told they would face eviction by July 1.

The Walnut Lane Trailer Park was built six years ago by the City of Moab as an affordable housing project.

Residents were notified on April 17 that the site would be removed and their leases would not be renewed.

Moab City, through a Facebook post, cited an issue with insuring the trailer park after June 30.

“Our insurance carrier notified us last month that they will not...

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Our thoughts on this story:

The Walnut Lane Trailer Park was built six years ago by the City of Moab as an affordable housing project. Residents were notified on April 17 that the site would be removed and their leases would not be renewed.

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

OK, here’s what I was talking about in those earlier articles. This supposedly great non-profit-owned community deal lasted a whopping six years before the city pulled the plug on it. Maybe all these politicians and others who promote these non-profit fantasies are unaware, BUT THE AVERAGE MORTGAGE ON A MOBILE HOME PARK LASTS FOR 30 YEARS! If you don’t have your non-profit subsidies locked on for three decades then quit pretending these deals have any future at all!

Langley Advance Times: Residents fear homelessness if Mission mobile home park closes

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Residents of a mobile home park in Mission are fearful for their future with the potential closure of the park looming.

Ken Babichuk has been living at the Grove Mobile Home Park off Lougheed Highway for four years. He said he plans to live there until he dies.

However, his options would be limited should the park close to make way for a new development.

“I’ll become homeless,” Babichuk said.

There are 25 homes at the Grove and over 35 residents — all of whom are seniors. Dave Nash, who has lived at the Grove for three years, says homelessness is a possibility for most residents.

“It’s a very real risk with a good number of people in the...

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Our thoughts on this story:

The newest owners of the property sent a letter to residents by mail on March 7 informing them of plans to redevelop the mobile home park into a multi-family residential and commercial project. According to the letter, the owners are targeting 2025 for the beginning of construction and have completed a pre-application review with City of Mission planning staff.

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

Absolutely nobody at city hall is going to mind tearing down a dilapidated trailer park to make room for a nice, new mixed-use development. They will give whatever zoning is needed to ensure a mobile home park is torn down. That’s why park residents – and politicians – need to understand that only higher lot rents hold back the wrecking ball. You either get much, much higher lot rents or homelessness. There is no third option.

9news: Denver's first community-owned mobile home park closes on sale

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DENVER — The dedication of a small community, and the tenacity it took to fight for their homes have paid off in a big way. 

Around 80 Westwood families, at one of the last remaining mobile home parks in Denver, are calling this moment historic. They're now the first community-owned mobile home park in Denver, according to the nonprofits Justice for the People Legal Center and Sharing Connexion.

On Tuesday, Sharing Connexion officially closed on the sale of the mobile home park. The nonprofit has a real-estate rescue program and were voted to become interim owners. Together with residents, and Justice for the People Legal Center, they...

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Our thoughts on this story:

On Tuesday, Sharing Connexion officially closed on the sale of the mobile home park. The nonprofit has a real-estate rescue program and were voted to become interim owners. Together with residents, and Justice for the People Legal Center, they were able to secure the $11.5 million needed to purchase the park, preserving their homes and community. Sharing Connexion will be the interim owner of the park for 1-3 years, until the residents are able to manage and operate it on their own.

FOR ADULTS ONLY:

This deal probably has about a three-year shelf life. Nobody buys a park on a structure this flimsy. All it will take is one of these non-profits to get cold feet or lose interest and the whole thing is back on the market looking for a legitimate buyer. Considering the fact that the residents will never vote to raise rents and will refuse to evict their neighbors for non-payment, the odds of this deal surviving long are not good.

ABC Action News: Insurance industry leaders say no relief in sight for 'highest risk' manufactured homes in Florida

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LARGO, Fla. — Largo resident Teri Jones emailed ABC Action News after seeing our coverage on Florida's fractured insurance market, wanting to share her experience: seeing those premiums rise every year.

"The owners of mobile and manufactures home are experiencing the same thing," she said. "I live in a 55+ community where it's no longer affordable to have insurance."

She chose to retire in a mobile home four years ago, but now she's worried about her future.

"This is our little home and we want to stay here," Jones said. "I don't want to go anywhere else but I want to live here at least partially affordable."

RATES STILL RISING

However,...

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Our thoughts on this story:

The handwriting is on the wall that a ton of mobile home parks in Florida are going to be redeveloped simply because they can no longer obtain insurance. Nobody is going to own parks in the absence of protection from liability and property damage. Even if owners were that crazy, their lenders will refuse to renew loans or grant new ones without proper insurance. This problem has been building for years, as the U.S. legal system has allowed far too many ridiculous judgement and gaming of the system. Since Florida is tied with California for the second largest number of parks in the U.S., you will start seeing endless articles about mobile home park redevelopment in Florida starting soon – such as the first article in this week’s news stories.

WBIR: 'It's heartbreaking' | Maryville mobile homeowner says eviction left her scrambling

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MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Inge Marie Sands moved to the U.S. from Germany in the 1960s and eventually settled in Maryville. 

Sands, and her late husband, purchased a mobile home and rented a lot off Temple Road for around 23 years. Then, she received an eviction notice in January. 

"It's expensive to move, and it's an expense that, you know, well, there goes my life savings," Sands said. "I had to pay to move, and I hope I can pay last month's bills — let's put it that way."

Earlier this month, 10News spoke to homeowners of the Thorn Hill Mobile Home Community, and they said they received eviction notices right before Easter. In many...

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Landry said in a statement. "Mr. Batz ultimately decided to discontinue the operation of the mobile home park on his property, which he is within his rights to do so.

Was there a lot rent amount that would have convinced the park owner to stay in operation and not develop into a new use? Do you see a trend in this week’s articles?

Daily Montanan: Manufactured housing advocates skeptical of new development outside Belgrade

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A new manufactured housing development outside Belgrade is calling itself an “affordable housing solution” for Bozeman. But manufactured home resident advocates worry prices are already high and could go up– a reported pattern the developer has done in other locations.

Cameron Crossing, a Three Pillar Development community, was unveiled Tuesday with new manufactured homes starting at $200,000. In a press release, the company said this development would serve as an “affordable housing solution for Bozeman.”

“At the heart of the grand opening event lies Cameron Crossing’s dedication to providing affordable homes tailored for Bozeman’s...

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Our thoughts on this story:

“We are all aware of tactics like lost rent checks, unfair evictions, harassment and retaliation,” Newman said.

You always see this garbage in most of these articles, and let’s just refute it point by point:

  1. Mobile home park owners have no “tactics” except to rent lots for a monthly rent.
  2. Tenants are the ones claiming that rent checks have been lost and that evictions are unfair – park owners simply want their rent by the due date with no such theatrics.
  3. Mobile home park owners simply want to be a parking lot. That have no desire to get personally involved with any resident and to have “harassment and retaliation” you would have to engage in personal discussions. Have you ever had a “personal discussion” with the airport parking lot personnel? Park owners want nothing to do with this nonsense.

The article is all about how $900 lot rents are unfair in a market in which homes cost $950,000. If you can’t afford $950,000 home prices and $900 rents I have a suggestion: move to a cheaper place to live. Montana is ranked as the 8th most expensive housing cost state. Here it is straight from Wikipedia:

Montana home values are 51% higher than pre-pandemic levels, which is higher than the U.S. average of 40% and ranks eighth highest of all states.

Kelowna Now: Shasta Mobile Home Park in Kelowna one step closer to being sold after lengthy court battle

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Another mobile home park is up for potential redevelopment after a judge recently approved a sales process for lands, which are valued at millions of dollars.

In a court decision from April 10, 2024, the judge approved a sales process for the property located at 3745 Lakeshore Road.

A variety of issues were addressed in this latest court proceeding, including the nature of the sale process and whether or not to engage with the city and seek any rezoning for the land in question.

Owned by the four sons of Lloyd and Marjorie Callahan, Douglas, Edward, Bruce and Robert, the lands are referred to as the “Crown Jewels” of properties owned by...

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While the Lakeshore Road property has operated as a mobile home park for many years, according to court documents the sons are all in agreement that it “is not the most lucrative use of the lands, and that the lands have significant redevelopment potential. It appears that the Lands are worth tens of millions of dollars.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up. At what rent would remaining a mobile home park have been an option?

KSL TV5: Moab trailer park residents forced into eviction by city after insurance complications

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MOAB — After six years of a promised affordable housing project in a Moab trailer park, residents were notified by the city on April 17 that not only would they no longer receive new housing, but would also face imminent eviction by July 1.

In a Facebook post made by the city, it passed the reason for the eviction to the insurance carrier of the land. The city said it “will not insure the trailer park after June 30; the city cannot carry that liability without insurance.”

A resident of the trailer park, Marjorie Begay, had been hearing rumors of the devastating news beforehand. Begay said she has lived on Walnut Lane since 1998.

She said...

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In 2018, the city of Moab purchased the land on Walnut Lane that now houses 26 trailer homes. The city embarked on the project, according to reporting from The Moab Times, which became consistently problematic. The goal was to upscale the land to an 80-unit affordable housing complex which would rehouse not just the current residents, but additional tenants. At one point, the developer selected for the project expected to be able to house 288 people, but the rent prices projected were less than “affordable,” according to the Moab Sun News.Wojciechowski said the city’s current plans consist of tearing the trailers down after the residents leave.Unfortunately, a significant portion of the trailers currently on-site are in extremely bad shape (many of which were in even worse shape when the city initially purchased the property), and likely wouldn’t survive a move without significant structural damage,” he said. “Many of the trailers are also old enough that they contain asbestos.”

Even the City of Moab can’t justify not redeveloping the mobile home park’s land. Low Lot Rents = Homelessness. How’s that for a bumper sticker?

Boothbay Register: Resident owned mobile home parks - A place to call home

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Nothing's easy when it comes to producing affordable housing in Maine.  It’s encouraging to see the Maine legislature and government at work – creating programs, regulation and tax policy - to protect or build more housing which Mainers can afford and claim as a place to call home. 

One bill sponsored by Senator Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln County) - LD 1276 An Act to Create and Sustain Jobs and Affordable Housing Through the Development of Cooperatives and Employee-owned Businesses – is promising.  It takes a hard look at the potential for mobile home parks to be part of the solution, especially for Resident Owned Communities (ROCs).  With...

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One bill sponsored by Senator Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln County) - LD 1276 An Act to Create and Sustain Jobs and Affordable Housing Through the Development of Cooperatives and Employee-owned Businesses – is promising.  It takes a hard look at the potential for mobile home parks to be part of the solution, especially for Resident Owned Communities (ROCs).

Maybe Senator Reny should call those residents at Sans Souci in the article above before he makes a fool of himself.

The Colorado Sun: Boulder County’s Sans Souci mobile home park jumped at Colorado’s “opportunity to purchase.” Here’s how it’s going.

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To the west, tree-dotted open space rolls uninterrupted toward picturesque peaks veiled in a spring morning mist. To the east, the intermittent whine of traffic reminds that a thread of busy state highway connects the Sans Souci Cooperative mobile home park to nearby Boulder.

This community of 62 households, largely older and low-income, offers proximity to both nature and convenience — and that, coupled with manageable lot rents, has long made the park a refuge befitting its French translation, “without worry.” 

It has been nearly three years since the park’s residents, bolstered by statewide legislation aimed at preserving such...

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Nearly three years after buying their community, residents find themselves confronting infrastructure, governance and management challenges

I’ve been preaching about the fact that residents owning their own mobile home parks was a recipe for disaster for years. There’s nobody less suited on earth to manage a mobile home park than a committee of residents – they will always vote “no” on raising rents and, as a result, the condition of the park will go down the drain. I’m glad this writer was brave enough to expose the truth, and I’m betting that a bunch of non-profits that have been hit up to personally guarantee the debt on these deals (which is the only way they happen) are breathing a sigh of relief that they refused to sign on.

Littleton Independent: Hoping to avoid corporate takeover, Meadowood Village residents try to buy their mobile home park

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There was not an empty seat in the Littleton City Council chambers at a recent meeting as over a dozen passionate seniors took turns sharing stories about how they love their mobile home community. Worried that a corporate bid to take ownership of Meadowood Village could break apart their community, they asked the city for money to help them purchase the land instead.

Several dozen residents from the mobile home park — which is located on the west side of Santa Fe Drive just north of Breckenridge Brewery — filled the room. The residents, mostly older folks, recently received notice of a corporation’s intent to buy the park.

“If we are...

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Great business model, right?

“Our goal here is to not let one resident have to move because they can’t afford to stay here,” she said “That’s why it got so critical for us to assure that we stay the community we are.”

Translation: “We’re not going to evict anyone for non-payment and we’re also going to vote “no” on any rent increase so this park will go bankrupt at record speed”.

This is the next Sans Souci just waiting for an idiotic non-profit to guarantee their loan.