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Idaho Business Review: Idaho nonprofit pioneers solutions for affordable housing challenges

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NeighborWorks Boise, a nonprofit organization, is seeking to redefine perceptions of affordable housing by creating quality homes and innovative housing solutions for underserved populations through strategic partnerships.

According to Bud Compher, chief executive officer of the organization, affordable housing isn’t just a goal, it’s a practical necessity for building a resilient and thriving society. “A safe, secure, affordable place to call home is the foundation for growth and success in life,” he said.

Yet, the path to affordable housing in Idaho has faced its share of obstacles, especially with the escalating costs of home...

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Our thoughts on this story:

I am still a little baffled by this new non-profit vision of people buying homes and renting the land.

To address affordability head-on, NeighborWorks introduced the concept of a housing trust, which was created this year to bring in large sums of money for downpayment assistance. This initiative aims to maintain long-term affordability by having families own the structure but lease the land from NeighborWorks.

While this is effectively the business model of mobile home parks, the difference is that mobile home residents don’t pay much for their homes and are not focused on appreciation. But in this case, you are talking about big price points and down-payments. The only reason people buy stick-built homes is for the potential for appreciation and wealth formation which is basically being eradicated under this concept, as they are basically not allowed to make money but simply live in the home and then kind of give it back at the end. I wonder if the folks buying homes under this program really understand the ramifications. It’s a terrible financial choice for them.

CBS News Chicago: Mobile home park residents plead with Chicago suburb to keep their water on

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BLUE ISLAND, Ill. (CBS) -- People living in a mobile home park in south suburban Blue Island were calling on the city to keep their water on, after the property's management company failed to pay the bill.

Residents at the Forest View mobile home park have until Nov. 20 until their water is shut off, just three days before Thanksgiving, and they're doing everything they can to stop that from happening.

They rallied at the mobile home park on Sunday to ask the city to keep providing a basic necessity.

"We need water. We can't live without water. Try to live in your house one day without water, and tell me that water is not an absolute – an...

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Our thoughts on this story:

How could the city let the park owner get $900,000 in arrears on their water bill? This article gives me the impression that possibly the city baited the park owner to get in over their head so they could shut off the water and force the park to close. There’s more to this story than meets the eye.

The Daily Record: Doing what they can 'based on funding': Millersburg mobile home park a council topic

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MILLERSBURG − The new owner of the Millersburg Mobile Home Park on South Washington Street met with council Monday to discus plans to improve the property, including removal of abandoned trailers.

Eric Vinson shared his hopes about upgrades and improvements his company, CMH Capital, plans to make at the South Washington Street mobile home community after receiving a list of complaints from the village about the property, which houses around 70 trailers.

"We're doing what we can based on funding," Vinson said. "That's how we're balancing our progress there. I know we've had a few cosmetic and potential safety issues going on there, and...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Great quote from the city manager: "We want to work with him, not necessarily against him". Three out of four articles positive – that’s a new world record.

The Intelligencer: Madison County Board approves license for troubled mobile home park

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EDWARDSVILLE — A mobile home park license was renewed for a long-standing trouble spot in Chouteau Township after significant improvements have been made by new ownership.

At a meeting Monday, the Madison County Board’s Public Safety Committee approved a license for Lakeshore Estates Mobile Home Park, also known as Lakeside Mobile Home Park, located at 3120 W. Chain of Rocks Road, Granite City, just outside of Granite City Interstate 270. 

In July, the committee had balked at renewing the license because of numerous issues.

The mobile home park was one of several that changed hands in August 2021 and has been the subject of multiple...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Another positive article – that’s two in a row. In this one a mobile home park owner makes good on promises of bringing an old park back to life and the city rewards them with a new license after seven years of denial

Housingwire: Lawmakers introduce affordable manufactured housing community bill in House, Senate

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Democratic lawmakers in the  and  are introducing a new bill to the legislature today designed to both “preserve” and “revitalize” manufactured home communities across the United States.

Spearheaded by U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) introduced the bicameral legislation in the House.

Following up on the 2022 creation of the Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) grant program that has a similar goal to the new proposal, Sen. Cortez Masto’s bill would make the PRICE...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Another positive article? Unbelievable.

If enacted, the bill would ask the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement “a competitive grant program to award funds to eligible recipients to carry out eligible projects for improvements in eligible manufactured home communities,” according to a draft version of the bill obtained by HousingWire.

Grant funds would “assist in carrying out a project for construction, reconstruction, repair, or clearance of housing, facilities and improvements in or serving a manufactured home community that is necessary to protect the health and safety of the residents of the manufactured home community and the long-term sustainability of the community,” the draft bill reads.

NJ.com: Trailer park heaven

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A barefoot Dave Marra, sipping a rum and Coke in a blue tumbler, leans back on a rusty patio chair in front of the three-bedroom, double-wide trailer he shares with his cousin, John Marra.

The spacious home, at Tower Mobile Homes in Egg Harbor Township, cost $58,000 three and a half years ago. Asked why he and his cousin moved here from Denville, Dave Marra replies quickly.

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Our thoughts on this story:

Glad to see an article that is positioned to help ease the stigma against “trailer trash” – but hate that they had to title it “Trailer Park Heaven” rather than a classier title (what would be wrong with “Manufactured Heaven”?). But at least they had good intentions, and I hope it starts a new trend for similar articles.

Click 2 Houston: ‘Just overwhelming’: Entire Galveston County mobile home community evicted

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GALVESTON COUNTY, Texas – In what locals call Dickinson, but what is actually an area of Galveston County under Texas City jurisdiction, dozens of families are being forced out of their homes.

The dilapidated state of the Green Villa Mobile Home Community is not up to code according to the City Fire Marshal and code enforcement officials.

Trash, debris, and belongings are strewn across the property, as the landlord has the task of clearing the land and abandoning the business.

Residents who cannot afford to move their homes, an undertaking that often costs many thousands of dollars, are simply abandoning them.

“I actually quit my job to...

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Our thoughts on this story:

If there was an apartment complex that had code violations, the city would no doubt go to them and say “here’s what we need to get done to bring this up to code and here are some grants and programs to help pay for it and take all the time you need” and they would work together. But when it’s a mobile home park, the city says “fix this up or we’re shutting you down and you have zero time to get it done” and approach it from a confrontational perspective.

Galveston clearly wanted this park gone. Period. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

KSAT: Residents of a South Side mobile home park prepare to become its owners

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SAN ANTONIO – When Joe Valdez and his neighbors at Riverside Terrace first met with the ROC USA in May, they were shocked and frightened to learn that their South Side mobile home park was up for sale.

“First thing everybody thought was like, ‘How much time?’” Valdez said. “And this is everybody, the entire — ‘How much time do I have before I have to leave? Do I have to move out?’”

But residents quickly learned they may not have to move out, far from it.

Instead, with the help of ROC USA, the park’s residents formed a co-op, the Mission Trails Community Association, which is set to become the official owner of the 46-unit park next week.

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Our thoughts on this story:

Not to be a party-pooper but there are two glaring problems with this story:

  1. The residents paid over $130,000 per lot to own the land. Including the value of the mobile homes on those lots they are in this deal at maybe $160,000 per lot. Based on my memory of real estate in Texas, you can buy a nice brick house for that amount in many markets. Wouldn’t they have been better off simply giving these folks $160,000 cash to go buy a brick house free and clear? I’m confused.
  2. The article admits that this is the third resident-owned community in the entire state of Texas. Since Texas has the largest number of mobile home parks in the entire U.S. that’s a stunning admission. When woke media discusses how residents buying communities is the solution to all the world’s problems they never include the actual statistics of how many of these deals actually close. It’s a really, really, really, really, tiny number – and then half that again.

9NEWS: Westwood mobile home park residents save community from potential redevelopment

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With help from a nonprofit, residents are raising $11.5 million to purchase the mobile home park to prevent them from being displaced.

Watch Video from Source.

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Our thoughts on this story:

When you spend $11.5 million to save 76 mobile homes crammed into a tiny parcel of land you just spent $151,315 per household to live in a tiny trailer. I’m sure the park owner is delighted to have scored this much for the land but how do rationalize these numbers from a non-profit perspective? If you said to these folks “here, I’m going to give you $151,315 cash OR you can stay in your trailer” NOBODY would have taken them up on the offer to stay. They’d take the cash, drive another 30 minutes out, and buy a brick house. I think there’s some type of disconnect going on between non-profits, reality, and the true wishes of the people who live in these properties.

The Telegraph: License granted to problem mobile home park after improvements

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EDWARDSVILLE — A mobile home park license was renewed for a long-standing trouble spot in Chouteau Township after significant improvements have been made by new ownership.

At a meeting Monday, the Madison County Board’s Public Safety Committee approved a license for Lakeshore Estates Mobile Home Park, also known as Lakeside Mobile Home Park, located at 3120 W. Chain of Rocks Road, Granite City, just outside of Granite City Interstate 270. 

In July, the committee had balked at renewing the license because of numerous issues.

The mobile home park was one of several that changed hands in August 2021 and has been the subject of multiple...

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Our thoughts on this story:

This is a reminder that 99% of city governments just want the mobile home parks in their boundaries to follow the rules and don’t want to shut them down. It’s a shame that  Orlando – in the above story – had not shared this attitude and was then complicit in the residents becoming homeless. Cities and park owners can either work as a team and everyone wins or at odds and nobody wins.

My Champlain Valley: Recovery funds lag for Vermont mobile home parks

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Montpelier, VT- A number of Vermont’s mobile home parks were destroyed or damaged in July’s flooding, and Gov. Phil Scott’s administration has agreed to pick up the pieces.

But housing officials say that help has been hard to come by for residents whose mobile home were damaged.

State leaders started to draw up a plan to make mobile homes, one of Vermont’s largest sources of affordable housing, more resilient to natural disasters like flooding.

In mid-August, Gov. Scott announced a plan to ensure mobile homeowners would not have to pay to demolish their homes that may have been destroyed or condemned following the floods.

Scott said that...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Looks like Vermont makes really good maple syrup but really bad bureaucrats. Can you believe anyone could make such a monumental mess out of something as simple as buying a bunch of mobile homes and delivering them to the spots where the wiped-out homes used to stand? Read this article if you need a refresher on Reagan’s quote that the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.

San Antonio Report: Affordable housing co-op takes shape at Riverside Terrace trailer park

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At least 26 San Antonians are poised to become landowners this month, pending the final signatures for a unique, $6 million cooperative ownership and renovation deal at a trailer park that was facilitated by the city’s housing bond.

“It would give everybody at the trailer park a sense of pride for their land,” Valerie A. Valenzuela, who has lived at Riverside Terrace Manufactured Home Community for about two years, told the San Antonio Report earlier this week. “We’re not just tenants.”

It’s the first time the city has directly invested in a project where residents have shared ownership of the land under the homes they own through a...

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Our thoughts on this story:

NEWS BULLETIN:

The earlier article said that the residents bought their mobile home park for $6 million with 46 lots but this one says 26 lots. If that’s true, then they paid $260,000 per household so they could have the honor of living in a high-density trailer park. I hope this article is wrong on that lot count because – if not – this is a total scandal. There’s no way you can spin that as being in the best interests of anyone.

The News Tribune: Rent hike displaces residents after a $7 million mobile home park sale near Puyallup

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Wayne Kiser is a clock collector. He has more than a dozen clocks, all of which have different shapes, sizes and colors. Some are over 100 years old. Most of them are hanging on his living room wall while the rest are sitting on a shelf. The clocks show that time doesn’t stand still for anybody, even for Kiser. Early next year, the 64-year-old said he must decide whether to sell all his clocks or give them away. The new owner of the mobile home park he lives in just outside Puyallup is raising the rent. That means Kiser and his neighbors are deciding whether to sign a new lease or leave. He and other tenants say they’re facing a more than...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Same false narrative as the above article. A simple Bestplaces.net review of Puyallup, WA shows the median home price of $499,500 and a three-bedroom apartment rent of $2,470 per month. The new mobile home park lot rent is $805 per month. That’s right, it’s 66% less than the apartment rent. Yet somehow the article claims the rent is exorbitant. It’s not. Not even close, In fact, it’s ridiculously cheap based on actual math with no optics attached.

Instead, like the above article, the truth is that the residents who are living on $1,000 per month of social security should not be living in an area this expensive. If you are retired you have the ability to live anywhere free from any need for employment, right? So why would you live in an area with prices this crazy high? You could move to Missouri and live on $1,000 per month all day long – but NOT in Washington or California.

The other part of this story should maybe be that social security is not nearly enough to live on at $1,000 per month, right? But the social security program is essentially insolvent so it can’t give any increases.

The bottom line to this is that nobody likes the rents going up, but people have to be realistic in their expectations of housing in retirement. That’s the true narrative in this story.

WFTS Tampa Bay: Make changes, or move: Pinellas leaders write in letter to Twin City Mobile Home Park residents

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PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Hurricane Idalia continues to make waves for people living at Twin City Mobile Home Park in Pinellas County.

Some people say they still haven’t been able to return because of flood damage, and now county leaders are saying they either need to make the repairs to come up to code or they’ll be forced to move out. 

 

“This has been hell,” Erin Roth explained to ABC Action News. Roth still hasn’t been able to sleep in her own bed at the Twin City Mobile Home Park after Hurricane Idalia flooded her community.

“I have a 14-year-old. So, it's been pretty rough not being able to come home,” she added.

We’ve met with...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Why would you think that Pinellas country would tell people to raise their mobile homes up 9’ in the air or move out? Because they thought it would be too obvious if they said 90’ in the air. Clearly this story has the optics that the county is simply trying to raise the bar as high as possible to get rid of the tenants, the mobile homes demolished, and then have the land converted into a use that they like more.

Spectrum News 13: 'Some of us don't have a place to go': Mobile home residents face eviction

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The Orange County Sheriff's Office has served eviction notices to all residents living at the Lake Downey Mobile Home Park.

Many say they got eviction notices last week that warned them to vacate by Nov. 7, or risk arrest.

“It’s hard having kids going through this,” said Lynette Colon, a parent of four children who has lived at the park for the past year. “Some of us don’t have a place to go, some of us don’t have an income.”

Colon says her husband works but does not make enough to afford a new place in Orlando. The couple was paying $1,600 a month for a three-bedroom mobile home unit.

Water to the units has also been shut off, leaving...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Yet another false narrative. Orlando is fining this park owner $1,000 per day because they don’t like the condition of the property. So anyone would simply shut down, right? The city must have known that when they started fining him. So the correct analysis of this story is that the City of Orlando is apparently wanting to force this park out of business and have succeeded in doing so. Shame on this reporter for making it look like the shutdown was the park owner’s fault. He simply gave in to the city’s apparent agenda.

azcentral: Arizona mobile home parks are disappearing. This nonprofit wants to save them

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It was Christmas Eve of 2020 when John Egan received a notice in the mail: In 90 days, the mobile home park where he and his wife lived in Durango, Colorado, would be put up for sale.

Egan and his neighbors had already been through two prior sales of the park, Animas View, which came with rent increases, management changes and uncertainty about the park's future. But a state law passed earlier that year now gave the residents the right of first refusal to buy the park themselves.

All they needed was $14 million.

It seemed nearly impossible for the park’s 120 households, most of which were low-income. But with the help of local government...

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Our thoughts on this story:

OK, reality check time. Resident-Owned Communities has done 300 deals since inception. There are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. If you take 300 and divide by 44,000 you get .0068 which equates to .68 of 1%. That’s nothing, right? So can we PLEASE stop hearing this same narrative about how this concept can save park residents from “evil” park buyers and bring forth unicorns and rainbows and the end of world hunger because it’s such a tiny impact that it’s not worth this much discussion.

I one time found a robin that fell out of a nest and took it to a veterinarian. It may have survived to adulthood, I don’t know. But you could hardly write an article claiming that I was the potential solution to all lost robins. That’s what this reminds me of.

Yakima Herald: Costs and stress mount in some of Yakima County mobile home parks

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On a gray day in September, more than a dozen residents gathered at White Dove Mobile Home Park on Rudkin Road in Union Gap to share stories and stresses brought on by their landlord.

In Regal Estates Mobile Home Park off Fruitvale Boulevard in Yakima, 30 people gathered in their community building on a warm weeknight. Young parents brought their kids and older residents made their way on wheelchairs. They filled seats, leaned against walls and spoke about their common concerns.

At Valley Community, a mobile home park tucked behind a 7-Eleven on Fruitvale Boulevard and 16th Avenue, residents stopped to talk on their front stoops and front...

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Our thoughts on this story:

The park owner says that they “do not want to displace residents, but the company needs to increase revenues to meet the costs of improving the parks. That’s the gospel truth. You cannot bring old parks back to life without increasing rents significantly.

So what will it be: 1) acknowledge that new owners are doing great things by bringing old parks back to life and embrace the reality that rents must go up or 2) fight them tooth and nail and make nobody want to do this important task anymore?

The bottom line is, has been, and always will be: LOW RENTS = REDEVELOPMENT. That’s never going to change.

WLNS: Woman speaks on allegedly poor conditions at Sun Valley Estates in Jackson

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BLACKMAN TWP., Mich. (WLNS) – A resident of Sun Valley Estates mobile home community in Blackman Township is raising concerns about the condition of the home she rented from the company.

Salem Esham says she rented a home in the community in July and discovered a black mold infestation as well as a host of other concerns.

“They don’t care, they really just don’t care about any of it,” Esham tells 6 News about the management at Sun Valley Estates Mobile Home Park.

She moved into the community with her 15-month-old son. Her cousin also moved into the home.

“Our rent every month was $1,203, that was also the move-in cost and that’s all we...

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Our thoughts on this story:

A resident moves into a rental mobile home and immediately claims that her health is being compromised by carbon monoxide, black mold – even tiny particles of dust in vents.

The management fixes each and every item she complains about, but every day there’s something new.

“At this point, everyone has mutually agreed that this isn’t working out and that we’re happy to pay her move-in cost and she can find somewhere else to live and we can have an amicable resolution to this,” Property Management Vice President, Michelle Oppelt tells 6 News in a phone call.Esham says she doesn’t feel the payment is enough when weighed against what she, her son and her cousin had to go through.

If you don’t know what is really going on here then you have obviously never rented a mobile home to a tenant.

The moral: sell off every park-owned rental you have as fast as you can. Stick with the parking lot part of the mobile home park business only.

CBS Bay Area: Bay Area mobile home parks owners set huge rent increase for Castro Valley tenants

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SAN FRANCISCO — Residents at a mobile home park in Castro Valley thought their homes were protected by Alameda County's rent control law, but the property's new owner says they're not really mobile homes at all and is demanding huge rent increases from the terrified homeowners.

The sign outside seems clear enough: "Avalon Mobile Home Park." But when the Castro Valley property was purchased earlier this year by Three Pillar Communities, letters were sent to residents raising rents, in some cases doubling them, despite the fact that Alameda County has a mobile home rent control ordinance limiting increases to 5 percent per year.

"We found...

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Our thoughts on this story:

First of all, the rent is going to $975 per month at this park in Castro Valley. If you simply look up Castro Valley on Bestplaces.net you’ll see that the median home price is $1,047,800 and the two-bedroom apartment rent is $2,320 per month and the three bedroom is $3,300 per month. So much for the reporter’s angle that “this new mobile home park lot rent is ridiculous” because it’s not. Not at all. In fact, it’s less than 50% of the apartment rents.

The more interesting part of this story revolves around the new owner’s argument that these are not mobile homes but RVs. Very strategically interesting and could present some really bad case law for the rent control advocates. Technically – looking at the video of the story – most of these are NOT mobile homes, but instead either park models (which are designated as RVs) or pre-HUD homes (which are not then defined as mobile homes which would have a HUD seal). So I think the park owner has a shot. And it will be a cliffhanger for California if this case proceeds to trial as a huge amount of California mobile home parks look just like this one and technically these aren’t necessarily mobile homes based on definition. If that should occur – and this park owner wins -- then it might be possible for all California park owners to use that new case law to upend rent control across the state. For that reason, Castro Valley may want to think twice about litigating this.

Public Media News for Central Florida: Ground breaks on Universal's new affordable housing project in Orlando

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The name Universal, often linked to movies, theme parks, and resorts, will now also be linked to another industry — housing.

Public and private partners broke ground Wednesday for a new housing complex on Destination Parkway in Orlando, that will offer 1,000 new living spaces, 75% of which will be kept as affordable.

The community, called Catchlight Crossings, will be developed on 20 acres of land near International Drive donated by Universal. As Central Florida grapples with an affordable housing crisis, where people who work in the area can't afford to live locally, John Sprouls, executive vice president and chief administrative officer...

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Our thoughts on this story:

This article has nothing to do with mobile home parks, but it’s so stupid that it warranted inclusion in this week’s news list.

Universal (yes, the theme park) is building “affordable” apartments in Orlando. They’re spending $350 million to build 1,000 units. That works out to $350,000 per unit.

Now you might ask how that is affordable? It’s not. Only a complete idiot would think that’s affordable. That’s higher than the median home price in probably 70% of all U.S. metro areas, including such places as Dallas, Tulsa and Omaha.

Has America really lost grasp of the concept of “affordable”? Is next up an article on the new “affordable” Rolls Royce? How did we all get this stupid?

SRQ Magazine: Steube Wants Mobile Home Parks Eligible for FEMA Support

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides reimbursement and support to individual homeowners for debris removal after storms. But U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, said after Hurricane Ian struck South Sarasota County, it took a special waiver to allow private mobile home parks and homeowner associations to receive the same support.

The congressman on Friday filed legislation in the House to formalize a process and allow private communities to receive FEMA assistance. The Clean Up Disasters and Emergencies with Better Recovery and Immediate Support (Clean Up DEBRIS) Act would make any common interest community, including housing...

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Our thoughts on this story:

MY HAT IS OFF TO THIS GUY!

Steube said the mobile home parks and communities he dealt with had the same recovery needs as individual homeowners and should receive the same support.

America needs more politicians like this guy – people who don’t waste time on nonsense (tenant first options that never materialize) and focus on real issues like putting homes back together after a major storm and flooding.

Bravo!

102.9 Rewind Radio: Cranbrook curbside waste & recycling collection no longer being offered for strata communities, mobile home parks

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The City of Cranbrook’s curbside garbage and recycling collection services will not be offered to strata communities and mobile home parks following a decision from city council last night.

This decision comes amid higher costs for equipment and fuel while gripping with a need to hire more staff.

Service levels among staff and collection equipment are nearing capacity, and adding new neighbourhoods in strata and mobile home parks will strain service levels in the community.

The City says it realizes it may need to revisit this decision as Cranbrook continues its growth and development.

See more information from the City of Cranbrook...

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Our thoughts on this story:

If this article says what I think it says, the city is discontinuing curbside trash just to mobile home parks due to city budget constraints. Obviously, that makes zero sense. Why are mobile home park residents singled out as not being worthy of curbside trash? Personally, I think the park owner should go to HUD and get their opinion on this.

AZ Central: Central Phoenix trailer park to be replaced with housing to serve the 'missing middle'

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Housing, offices and a small-scale restaurant or cafe are part of a proposed redevelopment in central Phoenix on a site that used to include a mobile home park.

Phoenix-based Venue Projects bought the 2.5-acre site at 14th Place and Highland Avenue in 2017, Lorenzo Perez, co-founder of Venue Projects, said.

“My business partner, Jon Kitchell, and his wife live in that neighborhood,” Perez said. “For years, Jon had been trying to acquire the park. He was drawn to the old 1950s trailers on the site.”

Modern mobile home park was the hope

When they bought the park, Venue Projects had intended to rehabilitate the site as a trailer park, with...

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Our thoughts on this story:

It’s interesting how people can be manipulated by a “spin”. In this case you have a group that bought a mobile home park, found the land was worth more in a different use, and was able to demolish the park without any pushback because they claimed it was all about focusing on this corny “missing middle” spin. The guy with the boatyard project in the earlier article should have told the city he was working on the “missing middle” and they would have said “yes, that’s extremely important to our city so go ahead and tear those last two trailers down” – without even knowing what he was talking about.

Reminds me of when they re-labeled “garbagemen” into “environmental engineers”. My hat is off to the “missing middle” label – pure genius.

Bangor Daily News: New law hopes to keep investors out of Maine’s mobile home parks

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A new law goes into effect Wednesday that proponents say will curb investor activity in Maine’s manufactured housing market, which is on the rise.

LD 1931 will require the owners of manufactured housing communities — sometimes known as mobile home parks — to give residents notice if the land under their homes is going to be put up for sale. Though many people own their manufactured homes, they don’t own the lots under them and pay a monthly fee to rent those from a landowner.

About 10 percent of Maine’s population lives in a manufactured home, according to U.S. census data.

Landowners now have to give residents 60 days from the time of...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Yet another state wants to drink the Kool-Aid that “resident first option to buy mobile home parks” is the solution to world hunger, global warming, drought and pestilence. If I got a dollar for every mobile home park that is successfully purchased by the residents in Maine. I’d have … zero dollars.

Times Union: State steps in again to ask mobile home park owner to refrain from harassing tenants

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SARATOGA — For the second time, the state has asked the owner of a mobile home park on Saratoga Lake to stop harassing and threatening tenants with eviction, allowing rattled residents a temporary reprieve from the owner's wish to accelerate redevelopment plans.

The state Division of Homes and Community Renewal sent a letter Sept. 26 to owner Michael Giovanone, reiterating that he must preserve the 3.2-acre Saratoga Lakeview Mobile Home Park as a park until 2026. 

“This letter is also meant to remind you of your legal obligation to fulfill your duties under the Park’s contract to purchase and the Certification you signed on March 31, 2021,...

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Our thoughts on this story:

Same pathetic story as last week. A guy wants to redevelop a dilapidated trailer park into a nice boat storage business. But the bureaucrats will go to any lengths to block him because there are two trailers left in the park and the powers that be have some rationale that the single most important thing on earth is that this guy be denied his right to finish clearing the property until 2026. I know none of the facts but simply reading this article leads you to the conclusion that 1) either somebody at the city or state has it in for this guy or 2) the city and county leaders are basically worthless. But then you realize the property is in New York and you think “oh, ok now it makes sense”.