Mobile Home Park News Briefing

BUENA VISTA – Jerry Champlin had a plan to help ease the housing crunch in Buena Vista. Why not build a dozen tiny homes around a central courtyard on a residential lot a block from downtown and rent them out for $1,000 a month? 

He bought a small home on a big lot in 2019 and floated his plan. Six years later, he’s about to start renting. But the plan, pushed and shoved by local rules and soaring costs, has changed. 

He’s now stacked 21 shipping containers around the courtyard in a community he’s called BV Basecamp. He built 16 units in 17 of those steel boxes and the rest are community spaces for office work, storage and studios. 

And...

A bill making its way through the Oregon Legislature would prevent new planned communities from banning manufactured and modular homes.

House Bill 3144 would not impact existing communities, only new communities moving forward. Manufactured units would still be subject to the same design requirements of other homes in a community.

“While successfully addressing the crisis will take many types of creative solutions, frankly, this bill is an easy one,” bill sponsor Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, told the Senate Committee on Housing and Development on Monday afternoon.

Marsh is the chair of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness. She...

In late 2024, the residents of Sweetwater's Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park were told the park would close to make way for an affordable housing complex. Some community members took $14,000 buyouts, but others have stayed and filed a class action lawsuit against the park's owner, CREI Holdings, in an effort to stop the evictions. The jury's still out on what will happen to the remaining residents of the community, but the phenomenon of underprivileged locals losing their homes to a rapidly changing Miami is becoming increasingly common.

The mobile home communities that once proliferated throughout South Florida's urban landscape have one after...

MARSHALL, MINN. – Residents of the Broadmoor Valley mobile home park voiced fear, frustration and pleas for help at a city-convened public hearing on the park’s impending closure.

The hearing, a required step under Minnesota law, saw the Marshall City Council appoint a neutral third party to navigate the complex process of closing the park, which has been embroiled in litigation in recent years.

“Marshall, please help us,” park resident Anais Rodriguez said at the hearing on Wednesday night. “We are part of Marshall, we are residents from Marshall, and I want to stay here to continue growing my kids and see them graduate from...

The eerily quiet lull on Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park’s 112th Avenue is routinely interrupted by the clang of a demolition crane. In just four months, half of the mobile home park in Sweetwater, Florida, has been razed to the ground. An old hibiscus bush nurtured by one family for decades is gone. A handful of mobile homes sparsely populates the once-packed community, giving way to a towering new development and leaving ample space for its inevitable replicas across what used to be affordable housing.

Despite an ongoing class-action lawsuit, tenants have chosen to evacuate their own homes before a May 19 deadline in order to secure a...

In addition to rising costs and threats of displacement, U.S. mobile home residents face “serious health hazards,” according to a new report from Human Impact Partners and advocacy group Manufactured Housing Action (MHAction).

As Hope Davis explains in an article in Next City, the report used tenant interviews, information from mobile home operator Homes for America, and public records to understand how poor infrastructure and deteriorating conditions put manufactured home residents at risk from extreme heat and cold, poor water quality, and unhealthy air. “In the report, researchers documented water quality violations at five Homes of...

Princeton – Mobile home communities, also known as trailer parks, are facts of life around West Virginia and throughout the nation, but a report compiled by two nonprofit organizations with help from Mercer County residents argues that out-of-state owners are making these parks less than desirable places to live.

In February 2023, Mountain State Justice, a statewide nonprofit legal services and advocacy organization, announced they filed a lawsuit in Mercer County Circuit Court on behalf of the residents in five manufactured housing communities against an out-of-state private equity firm and its affiliates.

The lawsuit’s...

This story is the first in a series on manufactured housing and solutions to help mitigate threats facing mobile home residents, from private equity ownership to climate change.

Four years ago, Valeria Steele’s West Virginia mobile home park was purchased by Homes of America, a subsidiary of well-known “vulture fund” Alden Global Capital. The private equity giant has become infamous for buying distressed newspapers, cutting staff, offloading assets and loading them with debt.

“They don’t make any attempt to sell them,” Steele says. “They don’t make any attempt to repair them. And that’s the norm among a lot of their properties.”

Sure...

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - The need for quality, affordable housing persists across Lincoln County.

Projects like the Mulligan Meadows Housing Subdivision and a number of apartment complexes have made a dent in the housing crisis. Tuesday, the North Platte City Council endorsed another project that would drastically aid in addressing the housing crunch as well.

Nebraska-based Chief Industries has purchased a 43-acre, undeveloped lot along East Philip Street and South Bicentennial Avenue in Eastern North Platte.

“We have an agreement to obtain the 6.13 acres north of the Twin Platte NRD. So, right now we’re going through some design...

Allan Ayotte, 69, lives in a mobile home park in Norridgewock. He retired at 67 years old due to health issues with no pension or retirement funds; so when he saw a mobile home for sale within his budget, he bought it. He lived there for three months before the owners sold the park, and Ayotte says he received notice that rent would be increasing 93%.

Ayotte told his story in testimony for a bill that would prevent just such dramatic rent increases in  parks like his, LD 1723, “An Act to Amend the Laws Governing Manufactured Housing Communities to Prevent Excessive Rent and Fees Increases.”

“Less than probably an hour after they posted...

After a lawsuit that spanned almost five years, Pocasset Mobile Home Park residents have asserted their right of first refusal to purchase the park. The Barnstable Superior Court ruled in favor of the homeowners on March 27, allowing them to retain control of the land beneath their homes.

Robin Zorich and her husband have lived seven years at a manufactured home in Woodland Park East, a 55-year-old mobile home park north of Vancouver, Washington. Although she owns the house, she rents the land it sits on.

The couple downsized from their house in Vancouver, where they had lived for 20 years, before moving into the mobile home, believing that it was easier to get around in a single-level home.

Their rent has gone up every year, rising from $610 when they purchased the home in 2017 to $1,300 per month. These days, they’re cutting costs to make the payments.

Yet a reprieve came Sunday when the state House and Senate passed the...

The owners of the mobile home park sold the land to a developer, which has been a major sore for its residents.

Bradenton Beach city commissioners voted unanimously May 1 to direct building official Bill Palmer to determine whether compliance measures are necessary for a parking lot at 205 First St. adjacent to the Pines Trailer Park.

The vote followed a public hearing where representatives for the trailer park owner, Pines Park Investors LLC, residents of the park and their respective attorneys and others shared concerns and context regarding the parking lot.

PPI, managed by developer Shawn Kaleta, purchased the parking lot and the trailer park in 2023 from the Jackson Partnership LLLP for $16.2 million. Under the previous ownership, Pines Trailer...

After decades of deteriorating conditions and hundreds of police calls, a troubled Aztec mobile home park is set for transformation. New owners plan to address crime, blight, and infrastructure issues that have long frustrated city officials.

The San Juan Mobile Home Park, located at 305 N. Light Plant Road in Aztec, was recently purchased by Capital Communities, which operates 70 mobile home parks across the U.S. Built in 1960 with over 85 spaces, the park will now operate under new regulations, and cleanup efforts are already underway.

The new owners have informed residents of their policies, which include the removal of non-running...

A bill making its way through the Oregon Legislature would prevent new planned communities from banning manufactured and modular homes. 

House Bill 3144 would not impact existing communities, only new communities moving forward. Manufactured units would still be subject to the same design requirements of other homes in a community.

“While successfully addressing the crisis will take many types of creative solutions, frankly, this bill is an easy one,” bill sponsor Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, told the Senate Committee on Housing and Development on Monday afternoon. 

Marsh is the chair of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness. She...

BRADENTON BEACH, Fla. - The Pines Trailer Park in Bradenton Beach has withstood the test of time, but now, the park’s owner is telling residents that everyone will soon be evicted. 

First, they had to deal with the heartache from Hurricane Helene and the following cleanup. Then came the worry of possibly being red-tagged by FEMA.

Local perspective: At the Pines Trailer Park, the last six months have been an emotional roller coaster for residents. The community is tired, but they’re fighting to stay.

"It was overwhelming, and we just knew we had to push forward to overcome it," said Elayne Armaniaco, who is a resident at the park. 

After...

GORHAM, Maine —

People who own property at a mobile home park in southern Maine are hoping to purchase the park so an outside owner does not raise monthly lot rents.

Dawn Beaulieu and Carol Cook have been trying to gather support from their neighbors at the Friendly Village of Gorham off Route 22. At least 51% of the residents at the mobile home park need to agree in order to make an offer on the property, which the current owners have put up for sale.

An out-of-state investor, Crown Communities, LLC in Wyoming, has already presented an $87.5 million offer in a package deal that includes Friendly Village and seven other mobile home parks...

Drive around the Coachella Valley and you’ll quickly notice: mobile home parks are everywhere—about 200 of them, to be exact. What many don’t realize is these parks represent the largest source of unsubsidized low-income housing in Riverside County.

Nationwide, an estimated 21 million Americans live in manufactured homes, and that number is growing. As home prices soar and interest rates fluctuate, mobile and modular homes are being viewed in a new light—not only as affordable housing, but as smart investment opportunities.

“There’s a new wave of entrepreneurs buying and flipping mobile homes,” said Fred Roggin during a recent segment....

Legislation aimed at protecting mobile home park residents from displacement in the wake of natural disasters cleared a key hurdle Tuesday, passing out of the California Senate Housing Committee with broad support.

Senate Bill 749, authored by Senator Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades), seeks to expand affordable housing protections by making it more difficult for landowners to convert mobile home parks to market-rate uses following disasters like wildfires, floods or earthquakes. The bill is a direct response to the devastating January wildfires that tore through Pacific Palisades, Altadena and parts of Malibu, displacing thousands and...

GORHAM, Maine (WGME) -- Friendly Village in Gorham is one of the many mobile home parks across the state that have recently gone up for sale.

A group of residents in Friendly Village are hoping to buy the park themselves.

"Hopefully a representative and senators are going to see this and understand how important this is for all of us that we can control our own destiny in our homes," Dawn Beaulieu, a resident of Friendly Village for 30 years, said.

On Saturday, park residents, neighbors, and a few state lawmakers gathered in a community meeting to discuss their next steps for taking control.

About 24 families living at the Lazy Day Mobile Home Trailer Park were served eviction notices on April 14.

According to the eviction letter shared with the Hungry Horse News, people must have their trailers removed by Oct. 18, though the owners of the park have been given financial incentives to move out sooner.

If trailer owners move or sign over the title to the trailer to the park owners by July 18, they would receive a $10,000 payment. If they do the same by Sept. 18, they’d receive $5,000.

If they wait until the Oct. 18 deadline, they will get nothing. The October date is a few days after the six-month notice required by...

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Michigan State Rep. Emily E. Dievendorf has posted the following statement to Facebook regarding the eviction of residents at the Kristana Mobile Home Park in Dewitt Township:

Thank you to all who have reached out about the unacceptable conditions at Kristana Mobile Home Park. I want you to know that I hear you and I share your outrage.

Since my office was first made aware of the situation on March 31, 2025, we have been actively engaged in supporting the residents of Kristana MHP. I have been in direct contact with the residents, visited the park myself to witness the conditions firsthand, and worked alongside...

Byron Sellers had wanted to get into real estate investing for years, but the deals he came across were always prohibitively expensive. One day in 2017, he was listening to a real estate podcast while driving for Lyft when he heard about something different: flipping mobile homes.

"I was like, 'Wow, she's saying it just takes $3,000 or $5,000 to start?'" Sellers remembers. His passengers wanted him to switch to music, so he texted the podcast to his wife, Sharnice, asking her to give it a listen. "When I came home, she was excited. It was like: 'Hey, you want to do it? I want to do it. Let's do it.'"

The Sellerses did some research, took...

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - New owners of a Hutchinson mobile home park are shutting down the park as some residents are scrambling and frustrated with an order to leave by the end of the month.

Western Acres Mobile Home Park residents learned of the property’s new owners earlier this year, but some weren’t prepared for what followed.

“It was Premium Management that owned the place; they had the place up for sale and gave us all sorts of promises about what was gonna happen,” said Western Acres Mobile Home Park resident Travis Freeman.

On Feb. 11, residents received a letter informing them they had to move out by the end of April. Many in Western...