Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Minnesota manufactured home park residents and lawmakers are speaking out against what they say are skyrocketing rents and unsafe living conditions.

At the Minnesota State Capitol Thursday, they placed the blame on out-of-state private equity firms that have been purchasing these communities in recent years.

State Sen. Liz Boldon and state Rep. Matt Norris, both Democrats, were authors of companion bills, introduced earlier this year, that would cap annual lot rent increases to 3% and give residents a chance to purchase the lot they live on.

"I had to go back to work after 30 years of hard work at UPS to afford my lot rent now," said Gwen...

HIGHLANDS — The Borough of Highlands has announced they have reached an agreement with Scenic Highlands Owner, LLC, the redeveloper of the property formerly known as the Shadow Lawn Mobile Home Park off Route 36.

The official vote on the plan will be held at the Borough Council meeting Nov. 5 starting at 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Highlights of the project for the property, called Scenic Highlands, include a five-story building with 292 residential units, 44 of those which will be affordable, a clubhouse and other amenities. There will also be two below grade buildings for onsite parking, with courtyards.

The redeveloper will...

EAGLE, Idaho — Residents of a Treasure Valley mobile home park made state history Saturday by forming Idaho's first tenant union, with an overwhelming majority of households joining in what organizers are calling a "supermajority fighting tenant union."

The Treasure Valley Tenants Union announced that 84% of occupied households at Elevate Eagle Mobile Home Community (formerly Riviera Estates Mobile Home Park) have signed union cards to bargain collectively with their landlord, including at least 32 of 38 units. The launch took place at 3:15 p.m. at the park, located at 1298 Artesian Road in Eagle.

The union is seeking negotiations...

[VIDEO] The Quincy City Council approved an ordinance to add new regulations and standards for mobile home parks.

Mobile home park rents will be capped in the city of Camarillo — at least for the next six months.

The Camarillo City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 22 to temporarily block mobile home park owners from increasing parcel rents by more than 4.2% while the city works out the details for a potential permanent rent ordinance.

IOWA CITY — Utah-based Havenpark Communities, owner of mobile home parks across Johnson County, has agreed to an in-person meeting with the Johnson County Board of Supervisors.

Earlier this month, the board requested an in-person public meeting with Havenpark, after months of letters back and forth between the two entities.

Johnson County Residents United, a group that advocates for safe conditions in mobile home parks, has voiced concerns over rent increases, questionable water quality and poor park maintenance at Havenpark-owned properties. The group also has pushed for a two-year rent increase moratorium, but Havenpark has not...

The Michigan Manufactured Housing Association (MMHA) filed a complaint last week in Macomb County Circuit Court against the City of Warren, building director Kirk Rehn, and building inspector John Impellizzeri.

The complaint alleges the city and members of the building department are operating outside state statutes governing manufactured home communities and willfully and deliberately blocking or slowing down improvements at various mobile home communities around the city.

Prices in Montauk’s “Best Kept Secret” are still making headlines. 

A $3.49 million mobile home just hit the market in East End’s Montauk Shores, a tony trailer park — long a crash pad for millionaires and even some billionaires — at the far reaches of the East End.

If sold at asking, the tiny oceanfront home would tie for the area’s most expensive price per square foot.

The manufactured housing sector performed well during the second quarter, with occupancy holding at peak levels and asking rents continuing to rise. Demand for manufactured housing remains strong alongside elevated new supply shipments. Nearly 54,000 units were shipped across the country during the first six months of the year, marking the second highest first-half total of the past decade, surpassed only by levels recorded in 2022. Despite continued supply growth, occupancy conditions have remained stable since approaching 95.0% in early 2024. The current rate of 94.9% is up 10 basis points annually. This tight occupancy has allowed...

Mobile home park owners filed separate federal civil rights lawsuits Wednesday against the town of Windsor and the city of Petaluma, alleging municipal regulations governing park closures and rent increases illegally infringed on their property rights.

Members of the Ubaldi family own both Evergreen Mobile Estates in Windsor and Capri Mobile Villa in Petaluma, as well as four additional parks in Sonoma County and more than a dozen others in California.

They are challenging a recent temporary moratorium on park closures in Windsor and rules in Petaluma that block ownership from raising or negotiating higher rents in certain...

Like most high desert towns, Madras, Oregon, is no stranger to extreme temperatures. 

Located about 2,250 feet above sea level in a dry valley surrounded by central Oregon’s Cascade Range, summers in Madras can reach triple-digits, and winters below freezing. 

Homes outfitted for both hot and cold days are necessary in this rural community – but never guaranteed. That’s because within Madras city limits, there are eight mobile home parks with 276 housing spaces total, according to Oregon’s manufactured dwelling park directory. 

Many of these manufactured homes are outdated and lack the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)...

VANCOUVER, WA – On Wednesday, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03),visited the Vista Del Rio Mobile Home Community in Vancouver and met with residents to discuss the role manufactured homes can play in addressing the housing shortfall and building generational wealth. 

“Mobile and manufactured homes are one of the most cost-effective, achievable forms of affordable housing in our country and it’s one that is critical for seniors, people on fixed income and many veterans. More than 22 million Americans live in manufactured homes, but they have been largely neglected as a vehicle for building generational wealth and self-determination in...

Residents of a mobile home park off Prosperity Church Road in northeast Charlotte could soon have to move, as a developer plans to buy the land and build apartments and stores. However, residents say the relocation assistance they’re being offered isn’t enough.

Forest Park Mobile Homes residents say they are being provided $5,500 to relocate. Developer Wood Partners plans to build nearly 400 apartments and 25,000 square feet of commercial space.

The park now has about 60 homes, many owned by working-class immigrant families. Residents own their homes, not the land, but many have made additions, investing tens of thousands of dollars, that...

The City of Fresno has been awarded $4.9 million from California’s Homekey+ Program to help preserve and revitalize La Hacienda Mobile Estates, formerly known as Trails End Mobile Home Park at 104 E. Sierra Ave., the city announced Thursday.   

The funding will be used to create affordable and permanent housing for homeless veterans.

The city is partnering with Self-Help Enterprise (SHE) and will use the funds to purchase and install 18 new manufactured homes — 12 one-bedroom and six two-bedroom units for veterans facing homelessness, mental health issues or substance use challenges. 

The funding will also preserve the existing mobile...

Residents’ purchase of two mobile home parks in the Roaring Fork Valley closed on Wednesday at around 4 p.m. as ink dried on the contract between the seller, Investment Property Group, and the residents of the Aspen Basalt and Mountain Valley Mobile Home Parks.

This officially kicks off a new chapter for the two parks as resident-owned communities. 

“From that first meeting when the purchase price felt out of reach to closing day, the residents of Aspen Basalt never stopped believing in what was possible,” Tim Townsend, the program director of Thistle, a nonprofit that assisted the two parks in their purchase, said in a press release...

SWEETWATER, FLA. (WSVN) - Deputies are kicking residents out of a nearly fully demolished mobile home park in Sweetwater, months after they were ordered to leave.

7News cameras on Monday captures the remaining residents of Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park as they packed up their belongings.

Between Monday and Tuesday, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies served eviction notices for the around 220 residents who did not leave after a developer purchased the property and gave notice to the tenants.

“We don’t know where we’re gonna go,” said Enrique, a resident who turned down the developer’s settlement offer.

Each property was damaged during recent wildfires and failed to meet the city’s Oct. 2 deadline to clear ash, rubble, and fire debris

Los Angeles officials have declared eight fire-damaged properties in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood public nuisances, citing health and safety risks from toxic debris that remains uncleared nearly two weeks after a city-imposed deadline.

The Board of Building and Safety Commissioners voted unanimously on Oct. 8 to designate the properties — a mix of luxury estates, multifamily units and mobile home parks — as public nuisances under the city’s municipal code. The move empowers the city to...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A flood-damaged mobile home park in Pinellas County could soon be redeveloped, but as plans move forward, some residents say they’re being pushed out of the only community they’ve known for years.

The Twin City Mobile Home Park was hit hard by last year’s hurricanes. Many of the homes were deemed uninhabitable, and now the property owner is asking the county to rezone the land from Residential Mobile/Manufactured Home to Multifamily Residential. The change would allow up to 266 housing units, compared to 64 now.

As part of the rezoning process, residents are being cleared from the property. County records show...

After listening to local mobile home park residents, the Saco City Council will make a future vote on a mobile home lot rent moratorium to allow time for review before it considers a new ordinance.

In August, residents of Blue Haven Mobile Home Park in Saco received a notice that all lot rents would increase to $660 monthly, beginning Dec. 1. This would be the second increase of the year, and some residents say it would mean a 28 percent increase in their lot rent this year. Many residents say that rent increases are hard to justify when the roads in the park have potholes and other repairs need to be made.

In September, several state...

ATTLEBORO — The city council has unanimously approved a petition aimed at forming a board to combat soaring costs at mobile home parks, which are typically communities of elderly and retired individuals living on fixed incomes.

In July, several residents came before the council to ask that a petition to be sent to the state Legislature to allow Attleboro to create a rent control board that would oversee mobile home land and occupancy payments and make sure prices stay within residents’ means.

As local and state leaders celebrate the fastest wildfire debris removal in modern American history, the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates — a rent-controlled, 170-unit enclave off Pacific Coast Highway — remains largely untouched since it burned down in January.

Weeds grow through cracks in the broken pavement. A community pool is filled with a murky, green liquid. There’s row after row of mangled, rusting metal remains of former homes.

Yet just across a nearly 1,500-foot-long shared property line, the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park — like thousands of fire-destroyed properties cleared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over...

PORTAGE, MI -- Off Portage Road, between Stanley Avenue and Woodbine Avenue, is a large lot where two newly-built houses stand. It’s the site of Stanwood Crossings, a new community where the homes are for sale — but the land is owned by the city of Portage’s land trust.

Standing on her porch, Vikki Braker pointed out her favorite lawn cutouts, arranged in a colorful scene: Silhouettes of two children smelled pink flowers as a line of googly-eyed red ants marched beneath their feet. A tree stretching over them wore a Green Bay Packers hat.

The decorations were among many Braker inherited during nearly half a century at Cedar Falls Acres mobile home park near Menomonie, Wisconsin. She figures more people get to enjoy her outdoor display than anything she keeps inside.

Neat rows of brick bordered each decorative scene atop grass her son had trimmed. Even as she slows down in her yard work, the 67-year-old...

SPRINGFIELD — Tenants of a Chicopee mobile home park have been in a court battle with both the city’s mobile home rental control board and the owner of the park since 2023.

On Wednesday morning, appeal arguments were heard in a special sitting of three Appellate Court associate justices at Western New England University’s School of Law in front of a room of students.

The appellate review process is the last resort for the majority of state litigants seeking relief from an appeal, according to the court.

Linda Ducharme, a resident of Holiday Park Phase I, a mobile home park on Holiday Circle Road in Chicopee, filed her original complaint...

San Rafael, California - Another mobile home drama is playing out in San Rafael, which could impact other parks that are populated mostly by that the DMV calls RV's. 

The San Rafael RV Park is a tiny San Rafael enclave, where tenants are suing the relatively new owner. Any vehicle that is deemed a recreation vehicle is either self-propelled or a towable trailer. But can it also be a mobile home? 

In San Rafael, where Highway 101 meets Interstate 580, the Park of San Rafael has space for 45 mobile homes and RV's on a one lane street called Baxter's Court. At the moment, there are seven empty spaces available since some people left or were...