Preview:
SPRINGFIELD — The rents at a mobile home community in Ludlow will return to previous, lower rates until the town’s Rent Control Board follows procedure, a judge has ruled.
Judge Jonathan J. Kane ordered on July 10 that monthly rents — which residents pay to live on their lots at the West Street Village Mobile Home Community — will return to $207, a rate that they were paying in 2023.
Our thoughts on this story:

I have three main takeaways from this article:
- If anyone thinks that a $207 per month lot rent is sustainable in a town with $293,000 single-family home prices and $1,510 per month apartment rents, then you’re too dumb to argue with. Clearly, this owner needs to tear the park down immediately and redevelop into apartments or any other use. I’m sure they’re calling the land brokers right now.
- The protestors’ signs in the photo are all professionally made and NOT by the residents. This is clearly the work of a well-funded “Free Rent Movement” group. The residents are simply pawns in this game.
- Massachusetts is a state filled with political and judicial nut cases.
So let me now tell the judge and tenants what will happen next:
- The park owner will find a better use for the property and give the tenants termination notices.
- The residents will have to leave and will find all other housing options cost literally ten times more than the park did.
- The political action group that is funding and promoting this nonsense won’t even take the tenants’ phone calls when they realize they’ve been played for fools.
- The residents end up 100% screwed and the park owner ends up with a more successful use that makes ten times more money than the park ever did.
How do I know? That’s how these situations always turn out.