Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Across the country, the people who build, preserve, and steward community-owned homes are forming coalitions to make community ownership of housing a centerpiece of state and local policy. Drawing on conversations with 37 advocates and practitioners, the two of us set out to understand why these coalitions are multiplying—and what it will take for them to last.

Of the 16—by our count—state and local coalitions focused on advancing community ownership policy, 13 are less than 10 years old, and 9 have formed in the past 3 years. Many more coalitions incorporate community ownership policies into their broader advocacy agenda.

These...

Some residents say they are losing access to their storm shelter and that crime has recently increased after gates and security were removed.

For many residents at Pleasant Village Mobile Home Park in Bedford County, the quiet 55+ community has been home for years.

Now, they say they’re being told they have to leave.

“We received a letter from the original landowners saying that they were going to be closing on April 1st and that there was a new buyer,” said Homeowner Teresa Stosick.

Residents we spoke with say Creative Pultrusions, a manufacturing company located just down the road, purchased the property earlier this year.

6 News obtained a notice from the company’s attorneys, stating that the land will be redeveloped for business purposes and that they will no longer rent...

EAU CLAIRE — A bill in the Wisconsin legislature looks to address housing affordability and safety in manufactured home communities.

Senate Bill 1027, introduced by several Democratic senators including Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick), aims to make a number of changes regarding mobile or manufactured home communities.

“We currently don’t have any rules or laws that protect them in those places. And the further away you get from the actual park as far as ownership, the less likely the residents there get the services that they need,” Smith said. “It’s certainly been what I’ve learned from meetings I’ve had with people in Dunn County, and Eau...

BRUNSWICK (WGME) -- Brunswick is now one of six Maine municipalities to adopt a rent stabilization ordinance focused on mobile home parks.

Other towns are considering similar measures as residents say rents are increasing while conditions in some parks are not keeping pace.

Dan Neumann, a field organizer with the Maine Labor Climate Council, says the issue has become a top concern for residents his team has worked with across the state.

“The number one issue with a bullet, was people are very concerned about being able to live in these parks for the forceable future,” Neumann said.

Neumann says ownership changes are a major factor driving...

Residents of another of the Roaring Fork Valley’s largest mobile home parks (MHPs) are on the verge of achieving something that seemed impossible four months ago.

With word coming June 10 that the Colorado Health Foundation awarded a $4.5 million grant toward the $25 million effort to purchase the 98-home Cavern Springs Mobile Home Park, the residents’ cooperative, organized as the Sopris Mountain Collective, were able to beat a June 13 deadline to make an offer on the property.

The grant brings the total subsidy raised to $11.1 million, just $1.9 million shy of the $13 million necessary to supplement a $12 million loan that the residents...

The Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners voted Wednesday to override the Planning and Zoning Commission’s finding of non-conformance for the Phillips Mobile Home Park redevelopment, citing rapidly deteriorating and dangerous infrastructure.

The Phillips Mobile Home park was purchased by Pitkin County to help preserve affordable housing that otherwise would’ve been lost if the park had been sold on the open market. When Pitkin County purchased the park, commissioners knew of infrastructure challenges and conducted a Health Impact Assessment. The board has since focused on housing safety, wildfire resilience, and water and wastewater...

I’ve never been called “trailer trash”, but I did live in a trailer in Northeast Georgia in my early teens. Trailers don’t have the best reputation, but I liked it better than the home I grew up in. It was well-insulated, with a shotgun floorplan, so my room was far from my mother’s and her boyfriend’s, giving me more privacy than when we’d shared a wall (Iggy Pop, who lived with his parents in a trailer in Ypsilanti, Michigan, felt differently, and tells how he used to draw pictures of fantastical, u-shaped trailers where a boy would have space to hide). There was a hill I could skate down, woods to walk through, and because we were...

ARUNDEL – Residents in Arundel have passed a new ordinance that will limit how much property owners can raise monthly rent rates on mobile homes in town.

Residents passed the measure at the annual town meeting on June 10. Town Clerk Rachel Bull said an actual tally of the vote was not available, but 175 voters were present, and it passed by a show of hands.

“There were so many ‘yesses’ you could hear the arms go up,” said Jennifer Moreau, who lives on Shady Lane in Shady Oaks Mobile Home Park.

Bull said the ordinance went into effect on passage. The new ordinance, according to town documents, limits the number of times property owners can...

FAIR HAVEN, Vt. (WCAX) - Residents of Green Mountain Mobile Home Manor in Fair Haven must move out by Sept. 1 as administrators plan to close the park and sell the property.

ohn Capen and Pauline Larose have lived at Green Mountain Mobile Home Manor for the past few years after moving out of the state’s hotel voucher program.

“We’re looking at options about going out of the state because the housing here is just so short and we came from a hotel ourselves for two years before we got our place,” Larose said.

“It is all famliies, elderly, people who truly need to keep their homes,” Capen added.

Court-appointed administrator Kevin Kite...

NORTHWEST TALLAHASSEE, FL — Cherokee Estates on White Drive is closing after more than 50 years, displacing residents who received 30-day notices to vacate. The owner cites an untraceable water leak that more than doubled the property's monthly water bill.

WATCH FULL REPORT BELOW:

Owner Rick Hartsfield says his father built Cherokee Estates in 1967, but the more-than-5-acre property has been in the family since the 1920s. Hartsfield says an untraceable water leak caused the property's monthly water bill to jump from about $6,000 to more than $13,000.

"It's just a legacy that, you know, for unforeseen circumstances that we're having to...

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - Rockford City Council delayed a vote to convert Riverview Mobile Home Park into a RV and 5th wheel community.

Mayor Tom McNamara says he never wants to see things delayed, but adds it may be worse if city council members vote without having all their questions answered.

Midwest Yard Holdings proposed converting Riverview Mobile Home Park into a residential-style RV park known as Rock River Commons. Midwest Yard Holdings submitted 2 options, both of which include building 85 concrete pads across the 15 acres.

“I would say we want our aldermen to be informed about any decision they’re making, especially one of this...

JAY, Maine — The Select Board faces a busy summer as it works toward an August deadline to draft an ordinance that would limit rent increases for mobile home lots.

The board is also considering whether to replace the Jay Police Department’s outdated Tasers.

Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere told the board Monday night that a mobile home rent‑control ordinance must be approved by Aug. 24 to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.

On April 28, voters at the annual town meeting approved writing an ordinance to freeze lot rental fees for mobile home parks, retroactive to Dec. 8, 2025. Mobile home residents, who generally own their homes but rent...

Attorneys for the residents of Silver Court Trailer Park have asked a judge to halt eviction proceedings on the Little Havana property, citing a Florida mobile home law meant to protect vulnerable people from becoming homeless.

The Silver Court Homeowners Association (HOA) filed a motion for a temporary injunction in Miami-Dade County court, arguing 1989 Sunny Court LLC — the park's owner — didn't get the legally-required government permission to change the zoning on the mobile home park before evicting people.

"The HOA seeks a declaratory judgment against 1989 SUNNY COURT LLC finding that it violated its obligation of good faith and fair...

Residents, lawmakers, and affordable housing advocates are pressing the Pennsylvania Senate to act on manufactured home community protections that have stalled in that chamber for one year.

Speakers at a recent press conference in Harrisburg criticized out-of-state investment and private equity firms, saying they are dramatically increasing lot rents while allowing services and upkeep to deteriorate – undermining one of the last truly affordable homeownership options available to many Pennsylvanians.

Chants of “Pass the bills!” were heard throughout the event, as residents filled the Capitol Media Center to standing-room-only...

READING, Pa. – During his budget speech Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro highlighted what he says is a growing housing problem across Pennsylvania.

“Christine Ziemer, who lives in Berks County and joins us here today, knows this firsthand,” Shapiro said. “Christine and her husband, Joe, who passed away late last year, they downsized in 2019 to move closer to their grandkids.”

The governor explained that Ziemer and her husband bought into a manufactured home community — a type of housing where residents own their homes, but not the land. According to Shapiro, more than 56,000 households across Pennsylvania live in similar communities.

“That’s...

Roughly 20 million Americans live in manufactured houses, which are homes made in factories.

Although they’re often called mobile homes or trailers, that’s really a misnomer because their owners can’t easily relocate them. Typically, the people who own them rent the land underneath the houses from the owners of manufactured home parks. Sometimes, an owner will rent their home to someone else while paying to rent the land as well.

Manufactured homes tend to be far more affordable than other single-family homes because they have lower upfront and monthly expenses. A typical one costs around US$120,000; smaller ones, known as single-wides,...

BIDDEFORD (WGME) -- Mobile home rents are on the rise.

Residents at a Biddeford mobile home park say their monthly rent has soared.

Tuesday night, they say thought relief was in sight, as city leaders debated a new rent control ordinance. But in the end, there was no deal.

Madeline Gallant has lived in a three-bedroom, two-bath home for nine years.

And for a time, she had it all to herself.

• Also read: Sanford City Council passes mobile home rent control ordinance

“I had to have my daughter and grandson come,” Gallant said.

She says she needed to bring them in just so she could afford her rent, which has gone from $300 a month to $650 in...

Damien Teague has lived in San Lazaro Mobile Home Park in Boulder County, CO, for 18 years.

So when he received a Post-it on his door on March 20 saying that the owners were planning to sell the park for $42.5 million, his heart sank.

"The next morning, I was sitting on my back porch working with ChatGPT to explore my options, just feeling the stress of the unknowns," he tells Realtor.com®. "As I was sitting there, I also felt the stress of the 212 other households that were feeling the same thing, and that was enough for me to take action."

The medically retired Navy veteran had learned of a Colorado law granting mobile home...

Neighbors in a mobile home park say they are now paying hundreds of dollars more each month just to rent their lots.

A petition drive already has dozens of signatures from folks who live at Idelwild Acres in Burke County. Many of the people there own their homes, but they say they can't afford the steep price increase for the land it sits on.

Julia Hughes showed Channel 9's Dave Faherty the signatures on the petition drive at Idlewild Acres mobile home park. She recently got a notice that her lot rental would be going up to $700 a month on August 1.

"And they want to go up on my lot … just my lot, not my trailer. I own my trailer, they...

ALTOONA, Wis. — For some Wisconsinites, manufactured or mobile homes might be one of the last ways they can live affordably.

However, in recent years, private equity firms have begun buying up those types of living communities, with some raising lot rent and neglecting needed maintenance. Others have gone so far as to evict everyone living there

In manufactured home parks, many residents own their homes but rent the land on which they sit. For people with that type of living situation, Wisconsin doesn’t have any protections in place for them.

Steve Parliament serves as treasurer of the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance. Back in...

When Brenda Dewitt moved into Hancock Heights Estates, a 100-plus site mobile home park outside Ellsworth, three years ago, she was expecting to retire and live off her Social Security for her golden years.

Now, she said, rent and water rate increases have prompted her to return to work for the first time in four years. Her monthly rent has gone up nearly $30 from last year, with rate increases varying by resident to $60 or more.

“I’ve had to go back to work, and it’s killing me,” Dewitt said. “I have two bad knees that need to be replaced, a bad lower back, but I need to work to pay the bills. My husband is 72 years old, and he...

DEWITT TOWNSHIP, MI - Rebecca Jackson moved out of her home of seven years at the end of March.

Jackson, 52, now lives five minutes down the road, but she still misses the animals that wandered through her yard at Kristana Mobile Home Park in DeWitt Township, about three miles north of Lansing.

“It’s been really hard on me. We don’t see the deer. We don’t see everything we had out there,” she said. “On a bad day, we’d go out, sit and watch them. It seems like they took it away.”

The aging mobile home park, once slated for redevelopment with a $2 million grant from the state, now sits vacant: condemned homes, overgrown grass...

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - Rockford’s Code and Regulation Committee advances a proposal that would see a change of ownership for a mobile home neighborhood along South Main Street.

The committee approved the special use permit for a planned RV park in a 3-1 vote, with Alderman Tamir Bell being the sole vote against the measure.

If passed by the full council, River View Mobile Home Park would be owned under Midwest Yard Holdings, which has plans to change the mobile home park to an RV and “5th wheel” community, which would force current residents to move.

The proposal now heads to the full council for potential final approval.

(The Center Square) – Legislation designed to protect residents in Pennsylvania’s manufactured home communities has been stalled in committee for a year, leaving homeowners, residents, and the industry itself in limbo.