SANFORD, Maine — The city is pumping the brakes on rent increases for residents at local mobile home parks for 90 days.

In a vote that sparked applause by those in attendance, the Sanford City Council enacted the temporary moratorium on rate hikes by a vote of 6-1 on Sept. 16. City Councilor Jonathan Martell was the lone dissenter.

The temporary nature of the moratorium is justified by two pieces of recently passed legislation, LD 1723 and LD 1765, at the state level, City Manager Steven Buck said. Combined, both pieces of legislation create affordability and stability for those who rent homes and live in manufactured housing communities...

NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. —

As home prices on the Gulf Coast continue to rise, Florida families are increasingly turning to manufactured homes as a more affordable housing option.

Larina Kramer, who moved into a manufactured home a year ago, said, "The other homes we looked at were out of league." She explained that her home cost $150,000, which she described as "nothing."

Communities like Lake Arrowhead along U.S. Route 41 in North Fort Myers are popular among retirees, but they are also attracting younger families. Arlene Fenn said, "I find that our park is turning into younger people. People that are still working." The community is for...

The Massachusetts attorney general is suing the owner of a manufactured housing community in Taunton for “unfair and retaliatory rent increases.”

Willow Terrace Mobile Home Park, at 1 Willow Terrace, is a 74-unit all-ages community owned by BoaVida Communities, which owns 250 manufactured housing sites across the country, according to a Sept. 9 statement from the Attorney General’s Office about the lawsuit.

“As our residents living in manufactured housing communities continue to grapple with rising costs, the last thing they need is community owners violating their rights and our state laws by raising rents as a form of retaliation,”...

Rent prices for lots in manufactured or mobile home parks are on the rise, according to census data. Some home owners say the increases are pricing them out of the homes they own.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Some mobile and manufactured homeowners say higher lot rents are pricing them out of the homes they own. That's a particular problem in Florida, with one of the largest manufactured housing markets in the country. From member station WUSF in Tampa, Gabriella Paul reports.

GABRIELLA PAUL, BYLINE: A lot of people buy manufactured homes for the same reasons - it's a way to live affordably with neighbors your age and a park that maintains public...

Bruce Gordon, 81, and fellow residents at Marsh Brook Estates are hoping the city will step in to help prevent large rent increases. Sanford city leaders are expected to vote next week on a temporary moratorium on rent increases in manufactured and mobile home parks.

SANFORD — Bruce Gordon moved into Marsh Brook Estates hoping it would be somewhere he could enjoy retirement. And while the 81-year-old did retire briefly in 2022, he’s now a school bus driver.

The city, which owns and operates the mobile home park, increased monthly rental rates by $25 for the past six years.

They’re looking to do the same this time around and have it be $325 per month.

Current residents pay $300 per month for rent regardless of trailer size.

If commissioners sign off on the increase, tenants will get a 90-day notice of the change, so it can take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

The rent bump, according to city officials, will go right back to the community.

“This would mean lot maintenance, stormwater, water, sewage, everything that you know this mobile home park essentially has to keep up with. That $25 rent increase...

FLINT TWP., MI -- The township has rezoned property where a condemned mobile home park was located, potentially opening up the land for future construction of single-family homes.

The township Board of Trustees completed a second reading of the zoning change this week, and officials said the new designation will take effect after publication of a legal notice about the former Myrtle Grove Mobile Home Park off West Dayton Street.

Busloads of Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park residents in white T-shirts packed a rare six-judge hearing on Aug. 28, as Miami-Dade County courts pressed pause on immediate evictions, allowing more than 200 Sweetwater, Florida, families to stay in their homes—for now. 

Judges questioned two key points in the long saga of the decades-old mobile home park that is being redeveloped for “affordable” housing: whether the park’s owner properly served change-of-use notices and whether the residents’ homeowners’ association (HOA) is valid.

The case centered on a motion for summary judgment filed by park owner Consolidated Real Estate Investments...

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)...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Pinellas County declared a majority of a mobile home community significantly damaged and informed residents that they need to raise them or tear them down.

This vulnerable community is in fear of losing their homes.

The Gateway Mobile Home Park is off Gandy Boulevard and 4th Street North, in St. Petersburg.

It’s a 55-and-up community. Many live on a fixed income and the stress is affecting their health. Now, Pinellas County said its focus is on compliance.

After a 40-year career at Cornell University, Bonnie Sisco has been living out the retirement she had dreamed of at the Gateway for the past 15 years.

“I...

Residents of Friendly Village Mobile Home Park in Gorham say they're abandoning their efforts to purchase their community for now, after their cooperative submitted three different offers and all were rejected.

The park's residents were the face of a legislative effort in Augusta this year to change Maine law and tighten protections for mobile home residents around the state.

Earlier this year, Friendly Village residents received notice that the park was being sold to Wyoming-based investor Crown Communities, LLC, as part of a $87.5 million portfolio sale that included seven other parks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York.

In May,...

There hasn’t been a new mobile home park built in Anchorage in more than three decades, a recent report found, and most of the existing mobile home stock is deteriorating or outright decrepit.

The city has about three dozen such mobile home parks, formally designated “Mobile Home Communities” in municipal code, and accounting for approximately 4,600 housing units.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration is preparing two separate ordinances that aim to slow the disappearance of one of the city’s biggest reservoirs of low-income housing.

One huge reason new mobile home parks aren’t being built is expense. Mobile homes exploded in...

Devo Brown began renting land at Camarillo Mobile Estates, a mobile home park for residents 55 and older, about five years ago after he lost his Malibu home in the Woolsey fire.

Although his rent has increased 20% during his time at the park, he considers himself one of the lucky homeowners. Since 2020, he said, rents for residents newly moved in have risen from $1,250 to $2,050 per month—a nearly 65% increase.

This year, the rent increases have already prompted at least three of Brown’s neighbors to move out. Two of them abandoned their homes because they could not find any buyers who were willing to pay the rent and one of the two now...

Residents of the Willow Bend and Willow Hill mobile home parks in Oak Creek are scrambling this week, organizing efforts to attempt to purchase the two parks after being notified the current owner has plans to sell.

“We are doing a lot of door knocking,” said Noreen Moore, who owns a mobile home in the Willow Bend neighborhood. “I think knocking on the door, and talking to someone individually might be more successful because explaining what a (resident-owned community) does — and doesn’t do — is the big thing.”

Moore is part of a group of owners that includes her Oak Creek neighbors Frinda Galey, Shawna Warbington and Joe Buettgen. The...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The much-troubled Superior Mobile Home Park off State Road in Oildale, which has been the scene of several homicides, arson fires and shootings in the past couple months, was being torn down by a mysterious work crew and their bulldozers Friday afternoon.

The dilapidated trailers on one side of the park were completely removed. Dust blew into the air as work crews cleaned out the debris.

A sign in the front of the park threatened in bright orange writing: “Out or Find out.”

William Clark, a resident of seven months at the park, said his power was turned off today. Clark said he needs a breathing machine after...

JACKSON, Mich. (WLNS) — Residents of Cozy Homes Mobile Home Park are speaking out about what they call rising costs and issues with upkeep.

“I’ve never had a problem being in here. I pay my rent, and I do what we’re supposed to do,” said resident Ronda Mosley.

Mosley is a Jackson native and has lived at the mobile park for 17 years. She says the community got a new manager six years ago. Since then, she says, the living conditions for all homes — inside and out — have only gotten worse.

“If me and my children or my grandchildren are in my house, that tree falls and it kills us. What’s my house insurance got to do with you killing us...

When mobile home park residents in several communities across Maine received rent hike notices this summer, some landlords pointed to a new state law as the reason. But some residents — and the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cheryl Golek (D-Harpswell)  — are pointing out that owners have been dramatically increasing rent since well before Golek introduced the bill, and are calling out the owners for scapegoating the new law. 

Golek says she introduced the bill in response to escalating lot rents that were already threatening to price residents out. “It’s frustrating that [the law] is being framed as the cause for rent increases,” Golek said. “The...

For Gayle Pezzo, it started with the snowplows. 

In the fall of 2018, following a winter distinguished by the biggest snowfall in years, the town of Colchester, Vt., stopped plowing the nearly five miles of roads that snake through Westbury Mobile Home Park, where Pezzo, 72, lives. She and her neighbors were furious that the local government could simply withdraw its services and leave the park in the lurch. According to the Colchester Selectboard, the town’s five-member governing body, clearing Westbury’s roads was not the responsibility of public plows. They had decided that Westbury was a private residence — in effect, one with a long,...

WATERVILLE — The owner of the mobile home park that prompted city officials to temporarily ban lot rent increases says his company may consider redeveloping the land or selling the park.

Last week, Waterville City Council voted to institute a moratorium on lot rent increases in response to resident complaints about a proposed $100 a month increase.

The ban is in place until April, giving city officials time to consider whether to adopt an ordinance restricting future lot rent hikes. That time frame also gives state officials time to craft model language for cities and towns interested in rent caps.

In response, Mark Hsu, a partner in C37...

The owners of the Aspen Basalt and Mountain Valley Mobile Home Parks accepted an offer from the residents of the parks on July 28 to purchase the land underneath their homes for the asking price of $42 million for both. 

The residents had, up to that point, raised $14 million with the help of various local governments and businesses. However, a couple of weeks ago, the lender made it clear to West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition assisting with the deal that they would not be comfortable lending the remaining money unless the communities had $16 million committed. 

This kicked off a rapid effort to raise the $2 million needed to close...

LAKE PLACID — A last-minute attempt by the residents of the Cascade Acres mobile home park to stop the sale of the park to a private equity firm appears to be successful.

On Tuesday, Brandon Montag — the executor for the park’s new homeowners association — said all parties have signed the purchase agreement, with an anticipated sale closure in the fall. After the sale closes, the HOA plans to assign the purchase to Montag.

In the spring, current Cascade Acres owner M.H. Communities Ltd. announced its intentions to sell the 52-acre park to the private equity firm Crown Communities LLC. Residents moved fast, fearing they could lose their...

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office is suing a California-based investment firm over allegations that it instituted “unfair and retaliatory” rent increases at a Taunton mobile home park.

On Monday, the state attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit against BoaVida Communities, accusing it of violating state laws and regulations regarding manufactured housing communities through its management of Willow Terrace Mobile Home Park, the attorney general’s office said in a press release.

BoaVida Communities did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Since purchasing the 74-lot manufactured housing...

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)...