Mobile Home Park News Briefing

PAGE, Arizona — The Navajo Nation is pumping nearly $75 million into a manufactured housing firm leaders hope will ease the housing crunch on the reservation, create jobs and spur economic activity.

Per the arrangement with ZenniHome, a startup builder of manufactured housing, the Navajo Nation will pump $24 million into construction of a new, larger ZenniHome facility adjacent to its existing plant in Page, Arizona, near the Utah border and within Navajo Nation territory. That new plant will enable ZenniHome to bolster production, and, parallel to that, the Navajo Nation plans to spend another $50 million to buy around 200 of the...

A relatively new plan of the Biden administration should improve financing for manufactured homes though an update in Title I of the Fair Housing Act.

On the last day of February, the White House released a document on boosting housing supply and lowering costs. One part was about manufactured homes, the “largest form of...

You might call it a worst-case scenario: Residents of manufactured homes have some of the lowest incomes and highest energy burdens in the U.S., with limited ways to make their homes more energy efficient.

But it’s also an opportunity for innovative solutions: A new study of Michigan manufactured housing proposes reducing utility bills by pairing clean community solar power with programs to weatherize manufactured homes – especially in combination with efficient electrification upgrades.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) defines community solar power as any solar project or purchasing program within a geographic area that benefits...

A tornado that touched down near Indian Lake in Logan County on Thursday night tore through communities where many people live in mobile homes, which are especially vulnerable to storm damage.

Mobile homes, also known as manufactured homes, are at high risk of being rolled or thrown in hurricanes and tornadoes if they are not properly anchored, experts say.

Nationwide, about 53% of all people killed at home by a tornado between 1996 and 2023 were killed in mobile or manufactured homes, according to an AP analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

"This is a common theme that we see in tornado deaths, is if you're...

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — There are about 80 mobile homes at the Twin City Mobile Home Community and nearly as many opinions from residents who are figuring out what to do after Pinellas County sent them “substantial damage” letters after Hurricane Idalia flooded the park in August 2023.

Some have already moved, others are attempting to sell for as much as they can, but most are just going to stay and see what happens after a June 1 deadline. That’s when the new hurricane season begins and is when their temporary occupancy notices expire.

Only one resident we talked to wanted to go on camera, however, they say they feared harassment...

Alpine Village resident Ann Premo says frequent rent increases and a decline in services have made it difficult for her to continue to live in the mobile home community in the northwest part of Midland.

These concerns have also driven her to become active with the national group, Manufactured Housing Action (MHAction). 

Premo is an advocate for state legislation that would make it more difficult for mobile home park owners to raise lot rents. She hopes the bills, in committee in the state Senate in Lansing, would hold mobile home park ownerships more accountable, including Havenpark Communities, which owns Alpine Village.

"They...

Living in a mobile home or trailer probably doesn’t always have a positive connotation among the wealthiest class. But, that perception apparently didn’t stop “Shark Tank” businesswoman and real estate entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran from buying a double-wide trailer in Los Angeles.

She recently showed off her mobile home to TikTok star Caleb Simpson in a video tour. Corcoran previously walked the TikTok star through her Manhattan apartment about a year ago, which she also owns.

The Pacific Palisades trailer cost Corcoran $800,000 and she said she put another $150,000 into it.

For comparison, the average price of a new double-wide...

CHICO, Calif. - The Chico City Council on Tuesday will discuss rent regulations on mobile home parks.

People living at Pleasant Valley Mobile Estates want more rent comfort in mobile homes. After fighting a thirty percent increase and settling with a 10 percent hike at the beginning of the year, homeowners say they want to make sure there is accountability from management and the city council.

People living at Pleasant Valley Mobile Estates are mostly seniors, veterans or people on fixed incomes. The owner, Legacy Communities, said they raised rent to cover increased operating expenses, like property taxes and interest rates.

The rent...

In 2011, it was chance that took Marjory Gilsrud and her husband, Mike, to a home in the Madelia Mobile Village Cooperative. But it’s choice that has kept them in the resident-owned mobile home park in rural Minnesota.

Before her move to Madelia Mobile Village, the Gilsruds lived in a private mobile home park that got sold to an investment firm. Rent started rising while the home was in a terrible state of disrepair. 

“We were paying $450 a month by the end,” Gilsrud told the Daily Yonder. “And the rents were increasing every six months like clockwork.”

The Madelia cooperative, located in the town of Madelia in Watonwan County,...

Rising rents at mobile home parks in Arizona are squeezing residents, particularly seniors on fixed incomes.

"It's a problem, no doubt, because there is no rent control on the lot, so they can keep making it go up and up and up,” said Sabrina Walters, who owns SLW Realty Group.

While residents generally own their manufactured homes, they rent the land underneath — which in many places across the state is going up in price.

Debbie Suits, who lives at a mobile home park in Tempe, said when she and her husband moved in five years ago, the lot lease was $700. Now it’s $1,000, but she said they have nowhere else to go.

“Go where? My husband...

A group of people who live at Old Orchard Village and Atlantic Village are attempting to form a tenants' cooperative to try and buy the parks for themselves. 

But it's no small task. 

Before the end of March, 51 percent of tenants need to support the co-op. After that, they need to secure financial backing. 

Residents say there are rumors an out-of-state company is offering more than $40 million for the property.

"Nothing is guaranteed, but we’re hopeful," Laurie Staebler said. "We're willing to work and we've been going out knocking on doors, talking to people to see if we can move forward with this."

Residents like Staebler...

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - Millions of dollars are on the way to dozens of mobile home parks across Vermont to fix inadequate or failing wastewater, drinking water, and stormwater systems.

The $15.5 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act will go to 46 mobile home parks.

“These investments support safe, affordable housing for historically underserved or economically disadvantaged communities, and help residents in manufactured housing communities overcome barriers to fixing water infrastructure issues. Healthy Homes has been an important part of our housing strategy for years, and I hope the Legislature continues to...

I’ve been watching Amy Ritter’s work grow over the past decade, experiencing her shows, and from emails and conversations we had about art, life, affordable housing, low income, and class issues in America, and more. Her extensive research, experience, and process helps to archive, preserve, and share overlooked and marginalized areas of American culture, specifically the population who live in mobile home parks. Her sensitive lens evokes a kind of humanity, complexity and dignity that is not always seen in representations of people who live in these communities. Having grown up in a double-wide trailer in rural Pennsylvania, the artist...

Honeylion is the latest completed build from Columbus, OH-based company Modern Tiny Living, or MTL for short. This particular builder specializes in custom units, but it also offers a series of models to choose from as a starting point. Like many other U.S.-based builders, MTL is also leaning into park models as the preferred alternative between traditional housing and compact tiny homes.

Put differently, park models are the compromise solution to downsizing and living a more mobile and intentional lifestyle. They're still mobile because they sit on trailers, but their dimensions allow you to move them around only with special permits. On...

Surging lot rents in mobile home parks have forced retirees in Highlands County to abandon their homes and move away.

Three retirees whose lot rent increases are forcing them out agreed to tell their story to the Highlands News-Sun.

Ron Hall has lived in his manufactured home in Bonnet Lake Estates in Avon Park for decades. The 80-something retired masonry contractor may have to abandon his home in the lot where it sits. He can’t afford to move the home to a less-expensive mobile home community.

“I don’t know where I’m going to move,” Hall said. “I’m going to try to get into low income housing. I’ll just have to leave my house here....

Juanita Perez never thought she would be sitting on the board overseeing a property housing more than 200 people. Even when the owners of Shady Lakes Manufactured Housing Community offered to sell to their residents, she didn’t know how the tenants could pull it off.

But now the purchase and transformation of the park into a cooperative has brought a sense of calm to 50 southwest Fresno families after five years of drastically increased rents and threats of eviction.

“It feels good, I’m not going to lie, I think the more that I see the reports coming out the more I realize how much of a big deal it is,” said Perez, 37, director of...

A new version of a bill aiming to help residents hoping to purchase their own mobile home park passed the House of Representatives with flying colors on its second attempt.

On Friday, Idaho House lawmakers voted 66-0 to pass HB 590 from Rep. Elaine Price, R-Coeur d’Alene, after it went through a round of minor edits. The bill would require owners to give 15 days of notice to a mobile home park association before a park is sold.

Currently, if residents organize into mobile home park community associations in the hopes of owning the community themselves, they must notify their owner once a year about their intent to buy the property. This...

DENVER — For the past two decades, the Capital City - MonteVista Mobile Home Park in Westwood has been home for Jorge Alberto Loya and his family. He loves everything about the place. 

"Everything, everything, everything," he said. "I'm very comfortable here. I'm happy with my family here."

When the park was put up for sale two years ago, Alberto Loya and his neighbors, like Eduardo Castaneda, worried they'd be forced to leave their homes.

"Definitely displaced," said Castaneda, who has lived at the mobile home park for 17 years. "We hope to work together and make it so our community would own this land."

Thanks to some help from...

YUMA, Ariz. — Judy Youngs had gotten used to modest increases in her mobile-home rent. Then late last year, she learned it would soar by 60 percent over the next four years.

Already living a frugal life on her Social Security income, the 71-year-old started clipping more grocery coupons and buying frozen Lean Cuisine meals on sale — five for $10. She dipped further into her savings to cover shortfalls and worried how long she’d be able to stay in her home.

Many of Arizona’s mobile-home parks are experiencing big jumps in rent, deepening the financial woes of low-income residents already struggling with high food prices. The spike is...

In 2011, it was chance that took Marjory Gilsrud and her husband, Mike, to a home in the Madelia Mobile Village Cooperative. But it’s choice that has kept them in the resident-owned mobile home park in rural Minnesota.

Before her move to Madelia Mobile Village, the Gilsruds lived in a private mobile home park that got sold to an investment firm. Rent started rising while the home was in a terrible state of disrepair. 

“We were paying $450 a month by the end,” Gilsrud told the Daily Yonder. “And the rents were increasing every six months like clockwork.”

The Madelia cooperative, located in the town of Madelia in Watonwan County, Minnesota,...

OLD ORCHARD BEACH (WGME) -- Some residents in Old Orchard Beach recently learned their mobile home park, Old Orchard Village, was sold.

This has prompted some to put together a last minute effort to buy the park themselves.

“That’s why I’m out collecting petitions," Melissa Hilliard, who's lived in Old Orchard Village for 22 years, said. “So that we can form a co-op and buy it ourselves. It might be a longshot, but that’s what I’m working for today.”

If they were to counter the current offer, they would maintain and pay taxes on the 371 mobile home lots.

First, they need signatures from at least 51 percent of those living there, sharing...

Residents of Twin City park, which is in the Gandy area, say it makes no sense to spend as much as $50,000 to elevate homes that are valued at half that amount — or less. Some have nowhere to go and plan to stay as the summer deadline approaches. Others say they intend to move out of Florida because of hurricanes, sea-level rise and flooding.

“I’ve done it for 10 years,” said Douglas McVey, who replaced the floors in his home five times after storms. “I’m done.”

In October, Pinellas County sent letters to residents of 82 Twin City homes, including McVey, requiring that they elevate or evacuate their homes by June 1. It’s the first time in...

East Blaine developers unveiled their proposal for a luxury manufactured home park during a February 27 community meeting, signifying the first time the developers presented the project after over a year of arduous debate in planning commission and city council on whether manufactured home parks should be allowed in east Blaine.

JIJ Corporation owners Skip and Katie Jansen, who are developing the project, along with Craig Parkinson, principal engineer at Cascade Engineering Group, provided project details to a group of people packed into the Blaine Harbor Boating Center during the Tuesday morning meeting. Two officers monitored the room,...

Given that “redneck” and “hillbilly” remain the last acceptable stereotypes among polite society, it isn’t surprising that the stereotypical urban home of poor, recently rural whites remains an object of scorn. The mere mention of a trailer park conjures images of criminals in wife-beaters, moldy mattresses thrown awry, and Confederate flags.

As with most social phenomena, there is a much more interesting reality behind this crass cliché. Trailer parks remain one of the last forms of housing in US cities provided by the market explicitly for low-income residents. Better still, they offer a working example of traditional urban design...

West Stockbridge — The town Rent Control Board has much to mull over following more than two hours of testimony at its February 28 session, with tenants of mobile home community The Residences on Mill Pond pitted against the park’s new owner who is seeking a rent hike that will triple the current fees.

Tom Lennon, Lennon Capital Group’s corporate agent, filed a Petition for Rent Adjustment at the end of last year, seeking an increase in rent from $241 monthly—as it has been since 2013—to a maximum of $797.51 monthly from tenants of the 35-lot mobile home community at 40 Albany Road, West Stockbridge. The issue came before the local Rent...