ROCHESTER — A potential agreement with four residents at Bob’s Trailer Park is in the works more than a month after they lost running water in their trailers.

“Two weeks should be sufficient time to iron out a few details,” Rochester attorney Travis Ohly told Olmsted County District Court referee Erin Felten during an online hearing Tuesday.

Ohly, who represents the property owner, Pennsylvania-based TSJ Parks LLC, said work has started in an agreement, but final terms couldn’t be reached Tuesday.

Court staff said negotiations were the cause of an approximately one-hour delay for Tuesday’s hearing, which was attended by TSJ Parks member...

If you have a favorite cashier at the store, or a favorite nurse’s aide at the nursing home who takes care of your mother, or you belong to a veterans association, you might know someone who lives in a mobile home park in Iowa. If you do, they, like me, are either already in trouble, or headed that way. Here’s why.

Mobile home parks are the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the U.S. The residents own their homes, but not the land their homes are on. So, they must pay lot rent every month to the park owners. Therein lies the problem.

Several years ago, out-of-state investment firms started buying up MHPs in Iowa and...

Large investors have been buying up mobile home communities at a rapid pace over the past few years, including here in Massachusetts. WBUR reporter Simon Rios dives into his reporting on two local mobile home communities that were faced with corporate buyouts, and the two very different outcomes they saw.

On the first day of December in 2018, Sharon Parmelee moved into Greenwood Village RV Park with her mobile home. She signed a month-to-month rental agreement and started paying $312 per month in lot rent fees in the park, which is located just outside of Kalispell city limits along U.S. Highway 2.

The mobile home park, which has roughly 85 manufactured homes and RVs in addition to a hotel and cabin accommodations called Greenwood Village Inn and Suites, is home mostly to individuals over the age of 50, many of whom are veterans, senior citizens or people living with disabilities on a fixed income.

About six months after Parmelee moved...

This week’s storms in the South that killed at least three people and injured nearly 25 more highlight the dangers of being inside a mobile home or manufactured home during severe weather. Most of the homes destroyed in the storm were manufactured. And at least one of the deaths occurred in a manufactured home.

In fact, of the 104 tornado fatalities in 2021, 23 were in manufactured homes, according to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center. In 2020, 39 of the 76 tornado deaths that year were in manufactured homes. Through Nov. 30 of this year, more than half of tornado deaths — 13 out of 22 — happened in manufactured homes. That's a lot,...

Residents at the Meadowlark mobile home park in Billings continue to have dirty water, a boil order is in effect, they've had frozen and broken pipes, and the water has been shut down.

And now in the Montana Legislature, lawmakers have proposed bills they hope could help in the long run.

Last month's historic cold snap in Montana brought more problems to this Billings mobile home park.

About 20 pipes broke at the end of the year.

"Biggest thing is just the water shut offs, and, you know, not having water and it being turned off all night. Has caused a lot of stress out here for a lot of people," said Gary Deveraux, a Meadowlark resident.

Residents of Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal will have access to safe drinking water through 2023 with a new $883,930 state grant. But the water won't come from the taps: The funds will be used to provide bottled water to households.

The State Water Resources Control Board began paying for bottled water at Oasis in October. Before that, the state, Riverside County and local community partners had been covering the cost since July.

The bottled water is not a long-term solution, officials acknowledge, but a stopgap while plans are drawn up for spending more than $50 million in state funding to both relocate Oasis residents and expand...

ORMOND BEACH, Florida — The problems at Peggy Childress’ mobile home started in May when a tree from the vacant lot next door crashed through their carport, the first damage she or her husband, Mike, could recall in 15 years of living there.

Having the tree removed cost $600, all the money they had in savings. “It wiped us out,” said Childress, 61.

Then Hurricane Ian tore off their roof.

“It was like it was raining inside,” Childress said. Rooms filled with water, then mold.

Childress said she’s gotten estimates of more than $22,000 for repairs, “more than this place is worth.”

As is the case with many owners of manufactured and mobile...

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (WFXR) — More than a dozen tenants at Massie’s Mobile Home Park and Christiansburg-based Southwest Virginia Legal are headed to Montgomery County General District Court on Friday, Jan. 6, for a scheduled hearing against their trailer park’s current owners.

“I’m looking for respect, and for people to be treated like human beings,” said Jacqueline Snyder, a tenant in the lawsuit.

Southwest Virginia legal aid attorney Kristi Murray says this is all happening after filing 13 unlawful exclusion suits. They say their water was cut off back in November after park owners didn’t pay the bill.

“First not being able to take your...

The North Platte city council wrangled for about an hour Tuesday about a zoning permit for a proposed small RV park on South Willow.

Merlin and Kelle Dikeman would like to create eight camping spots at 3501 S. Willow and erect a 40’ x 80’ building that contains a night watchman living quarters. The site is a couple blocks south of Goforth Trailer and Trucking at the corner of Walker and Willow.

The Dikemans said in their application that the building could be used to renovate and store old vehicles. Four of the campers in the outside stalls would be privately owned. The other four spaces would be available to lease.

The Dikemans said the...

COOPER TOWNSHIP MONTOUR COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Residents of a Montour County mobile home park say they have had it with the ongoing water problems and reached out to the I-Team for help after they claim their concerns were not being addressed by property management.

Eyewitness News spoke with residents who are frustrated, disgusted, and some are downright angry. They say they just want to have clear, clean water once and for all.

“It’s been a frustrating mess and it always goes on. We’re at our wit’s end,” said Robert Hayden, a Pepper Hills Mobile Home Park resident.

Robert Hayden lives at the Pepper Hills Mobile Home Park near Danville. He...

Charlotte Bishop was standing at her kitchen window in January 2019 when she saw water streaming into her yard. A block of ice had clogged the brook that snakes around the mobile home park where she and her husband Rollin live in Brattleboro, Vermont. Ice jams are not uncommon in Vermont, but the heavier rains and earlier winter thaws—both related to climate change—will likely cause more flooding in communities near rivers and streams. Bishop grabbed her keys and rushed outside to move their cars to higher ground. Within minutes, she was wading through knee-high water. 

Bishop lives in Tri-Park Cooperative, Vermont’s largest and...

LORDSBURG — The City Council shot down a zoning variance from Ed Kerr, who was asking the city to allow a 1977 mobile home to be placed in Pyramid Heights after residents who were at the Dec. 28 meeting voiced their opposition to the variance.

“The ordinance itself should prohibit this trailer from coming in,” resident Eddie Parra said. He added that there are already two abandoned trailers that need to be addressed by the city, and questioned a park area that is supposed to be maintained by the City.

“Don’t put us in the position where we have to challenge the fact that we pay taxes. For what? What are we getting in return?” Parra...

WEST SACRAMENTO — During severe storms, utility companies prioritize power for schools hospitals and customers' medical needs, but one local mobile home park's power was out for too long and the equipment necessary to keep some residents alive failed.

Valhalla Mobile Home Park has hundreds of residents, some of whom can't live for more than a few hours without power.

"I had heat in one room of the house so I survived," said Tom Madsen, a resident of the mobile home park.

The community of senior citizens lost power for days.

"There's a lot of people on oxygen CPAP machines and that's what we're worried about. What are they going to do...

A water main break at a Fort Collins mobile home community left several of its residents without water this week, according to the city, the community's manager and a resident.

Residents of the eastern section of North College LLC Manufactured Housing Community — a 55-plus senior community with roughly 320 lots — learned of the main break early Tuesday morning when they were greeted with dry kitchen faucets and shower heads around 7 a.m., according to community resident Patti Rosenfelder.

While Rosenfelder, 69, lives on the unaffected western side of the mobile home community — the largest within Fort Collins city limits — she said she...

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Private investors have been buying up mobile home parks across the country, threatening to raise fees or close the parks altogether. From member station WBUR in Boston, reporter Simon Rios takes us to a community near Cape Cod where residents decided to fight back.

BOB COSTA: How's everything going?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Good.

COSTA: Good - good to see you. How's it been?

SIMON RIOS, BYLINE: Bob Costa is like an unofficial mayor of Royal Crest Mobile Home Park in Wareham. On a recent afternoon, he walked through the park, saluting everyone he saw with a big smile.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: It's all right.

COSTA: You...

SNOW HILL– Plans for the expansion of a West Ocean City mobile home park moved ahead last week following approval by county officials.

The Worcester County Planning Commission last Thursday voted unanimously to approve a site plan for Salt Life Park. The project consists of a 34-lot expansion of an existing manufactured home park on Old Bridge Road.

“It’s really a nice continuation of the old park,” attorney Hugh Cropper said.

Cropper told the commission his client, Mark Odachowski, had purchased the existing park and started working to improve it. The 34-lot expansion is part of that improvement effort.

“It was really an eyesore,”...

SOUTH CONGAREE, S.C. (WIS) - A scrutinized South Congaree landlord was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly renting out a mobile home in a park that’s closing in two months.

Landlord Naomi Halter faces the misdemeanor charge of operating without a business license.

Tuesday morning a Lexington County judge granted her a personal recognizance bond, allowing her to await her court dates outside of jail without putting down any money.

The Town of South Congaree pulled her business licenses last August and her appeal failed in November.

In denying the appeal, the South Congaree Town Council triggered an ordinance-mandated eviction process for the...

LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Since Hurricane Ian, the Indian Creek RV Resort and Manufactured Home Community in Lee County still has zero water and zero electricity access in the park. 

“We moved here two weeks before Hurricane Ian and now we can’t move back in,” said resident Mike Jablonski. 

The park, according to residents, houses about 1,500 lots that were mostly full before the hurricane. 

“That’s 1,500 people now displaced,” said resident Clara Maggio.

The people in the park own their homes or RVs for the most part, but lease the lots at the park located on San Carlos Blvd, just over three miles from Fort Myers Beach. 

“That means they (Sun...

STARK COUNTY, Ohio — Neighbors in several Northeast Ohio retirement communities are grappling with drastic rent hikes after a company took over properties in Navarre and Elyria. The seniors, many of whom are living on fixed incomes, worry how they’ll afford to stay in their homes.

News 5 stories highlighting the concerns are now being cited by Congress in a demand for answers.

Monday, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown issued a letter to Legacy Communities, LLC about the steep rent hikes at Navarre Village and Twin Lakes. He also sent one to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, better known as Freddie Mac, requesting a review of its...

The world needs two billion new homes in the next 80 years, the World Economic Forum said in 2018. The United States needs 3.8 million additional new homes just to meet existing consumer demand, Realtor.com estimated in 2020. And yet, with perhaps 600,000 people homeless in the U.S. and 40 million people living in poverty in the richest country on Earth, it isn’t just about quantity.

It’s also about price.

And, price to the planet. Construction is already the source of 40% of our carbon footprint globally. How do we house people effectively, efficiently, cost-effectively, and in a planet-friendly way?

According to innovative housing...