BILLINGS — Eviction rates are at an all-time high in some parts of the country, and Montana renters are not immune to a slow spike in evictions post-pandemic.

In Montana, a person can be evicted in as little as three days, and that's the type of eviction notice Shelley Cooper got after falling behind on two months of lot rent at the Cherry Creek Mobile Home Park in Billings. Cooper's eviction notice came with a court summons.

“I took the receipts that I paid up to date when I answered my summons, so I paid it up to date before the court date even came about. Which I’m not understanding why we had to go to court anyway," Cooper said.

The...

EAST MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (WCAX) - Historic levels of federal funding are bringing help to some of Vermont’s poorest communities by reinvesting in rural infrastructure.

State data shows about 8% of Vermonters live in mobile home parks. These types of homes accounted for 40% of property damage during Tropical Storm Irene. A plan from the state would invest in rural water and sewer that will improve the lives of mobile home residents.

Communities like Middlebury have long had investments and resources for infrastructure, getting the attention of lawmakers in Montpelier. But rural communities like East Middlebury just next door have long been...

A resident-owned manufactured home community seeking to hook into Kalispell’s water and sewer system has received a boost from the Montana Coal Endowment Program.

The city of Kalispell received $750,000 from the state-funded program on behalf of the Morning Star Community. City Manager Doug Russell announced the awarding of the funds in his June 2 city manager report.

The South Woodland Drive community, with the assistance of housing nonprofit Neighborworks Montana, has spent more than a year trying to secure funding necessary to hook into the city’s water and sewer in an effort to replace its aging septic system.

The 41-home community...

Sharena Zayed and her siblings grew up on Cleveland’s East Side in a multi-generational household without a working shower or, at times, hot water.

Their living conditions improved in the late 1990s, when Zayed’s mother obtained a housing choice voucher through a federal program that covers the gap between what a tenant can afford and what a private landlord requires. Still, home never felt like a permanent address.

“It was always dependent on the temperament or stability of the landlord,” said Zayed, a 38-year-old neighborhood organizer. “And it just got worse and worse as time went on.”

When her mother died in early 2022, Zayed’s...

COTTONWOOD, Ariz. — Some of the highly-anticipated Inspiration Apartments should be ready to rent next month.

Yavapai College will rent 10 of the apartments for its workforce and has partnered with the developer, Fain Signature Group, to produce attainable housing options for the Yavapai County workforce.

But the ribbon cutting for the 192 apartments will be bittersweet for local housing officials because they know the project will only put a small dent in the housing demand in the Verde Valley

The Inspiration Apartments’ Phase 1 certificate of occupancy, “if we don’t have any more delays of materials, is July,” explained Guy Roginson of...

The Alta City Council allowed a trailer to move into Westview Mobile Home Park, an about-face from a longstanding precedent that outlawed new trailers from moving in.

The council declined to render a decision on a request from Westview Manager Kenny Bishop and Code Enforcement Officer John Stange to move a trailer from Northside Trailer Park to Westview. The five council members and Mayor Kevin Walsh deferred the decision to Stange and Fire Chief Kirk Reetz. Stange will determine whether the trailer qualifies for a moving permit; Reetz will determine whether the trailer’s new location will meet the city’s fire code.

“I’d like to see...

The Olympia Site Plan Review Committee held a presubmission conference on Wednesday on a proposal to add 14 new RV parking spaces to the existing Coach Post Mobile Park at 3633 7th Avenue SW.

Project applicant Bryce Hanson asked the committee to modify the previous proposal to expand the existing mobile home park by 15 spaces.

Hanson is proposing to provide 14 new RV park spaces within the existing Coach Post Mobile Home Park, which currently has 54 spaces.

In the narrative, the applicant stated there would be no improvements to the mobile home park other than installing sewage-holding tanks for the 14 RV park spaces.

Olympia has no...

One outspoken resident of a mobile home park that is owned and being redeveloped by Grand Canyon University says the university is trying to silence her in exchange for compensation.

Alondra Ruiz has lived at Periwinkle mobile home park for nine years and has been a central voice at protests and City Council meetings about the park’s closure. She said attorneys for the university asked her to sign a contract with a “non-disparagement” clause that would prohibit her from saying anything negative about GCU or Trellis, the housing nonprofit GCU hired to help residents relocate.

If Ruiz doesn’t sign the contract, she said she will not receive...

LINCOLN — Seventeen years ago, Bill Roddy found a little piece of paradise along a quiet reservoir in southwest Nebraska.

Roddy, then living in the Denver area, purchased a mobile home that was for sale on leased land that sits along Swanson Reservoir, a 5,000-acre fishing and recreation lake near Trenton.

Soon, Roddy was a part of a “big family” of 110 mobile home owners, joining boat and golf cart “parades,” a “prom night” party held at the local marina and even pitching in to help a local business clean up storm damage.

“It’s Colorado people, Nebraska folks, it’s Kansas folks, some locals … it’s just a great community,” he said. “It’s...

Some six months after an announcement the owners of the Pines Trailer Park land plan to sell, Bradenton Beach City Hall has yet to receive any inquiries about development options.

But there is speculation among Pines residents and neighbors.

Bradenton Beach building official Steve Gilbert spoke with The Islander June 7 about the process that would be involved in the possible redevelopment of the park.

And he said no one had yet inquired at city hall about the property or the requirements to change the use of the trailer park land.

The owner of the park, the Jackson Partnership, informed the residents Jan. 25 that it intended to sell the...

arkbridge Lifestyle Communities has announced a new community partnership with Mattamy Homes that takes Parkbridge’s land lease homes model into the housing mainstream, marketed as “attainable” low-cost residences.

The developer and owner of more than 50 residential land lease communities and 30 recreational resort communities across the country, Parkbridge has until now targeted mainly the seniors market but with its latest move it will now sell land lease housing suitable for purchase as starter homes in mixed-use residential communities.

The new Lakehaven community, with more than 2,000 homes slated to be built in Innisfil, Ont. near...

Governor Polis and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) announced that DOLA’s Division of Housing (DOH), Office of Housing Finance and Sustainability (OHFS) granted more than $28 million to three loan program administrators for the Mobile Home Park Resident Empowerment Program (MHPREP). 

“This important support helps residents purchase the land their homes are on, and we are excited to continue the important work to make sure Coloradans have access to safe and affordable housing,” said Gov. Polis. 

SB22-160 establishes a revolving loan and grant program to provide assistance and financing to mobile home owners seeking to...

After an eventful first few weeks for the new nonprofit owners of the 3-Mile Mobile Home Park outside Glenwood Springs, residents are now in the early stages of organizing to take possession of the land beneath their homes.

Just days after the Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation (RFCDC) closed on the purchase of the 20-space park along 3 Mile Creek on April 27, the Manaus-led organization found itself dealing with potential flooding from the spring runoff.

Thirty-year park resident and head of park maintenance Felix Jimenez would end his long days managing the irrigation system at a local ranch and return to the park to keep an...

As residents of a mobile home park in South Aberdeen continue to push for regulation of rising rents, the Aberdeen City Council last week considered an ordinance that would extend the notification period for rent increases.

As it reads now, though, the ordinance — which would require a six-month advance notification for rent increases greater than 5% in mobile home parks — could be dipping into areas of landlord and tenant protections already regulated by the state, potentially setting the city up for litigation, according to the city’s legal counsel.

That prospect caused the city council to table the ordinance in search of a more solid...

MESA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) -- Residents at Primrose Estates in Mesa were given notices this week saying the land the mobile home park is on could be used for something else in the future. The notice states that people have 180 days to find another place to live. However, the letter didn’t give an exact date on when people needed to be moved out by. “There’s people in here with no place to go, older people, and handicapped people,” Ron Hennemann said. “I’ll land on my feet. I always do, but I’m worried about them.”

Hennemann has lived in Primrose Estates for over ten years but says they’ve had major septic issues for the past three years....

PELETIER — Park model homes, and to a lesser degree, tiny homes, are catching on fast in western Carteret County, with major projects in planning stages.

Monday night, Peletier commissioners scheduled public hearings next month on two smaller ones.

The board met in the town hall off Highway 58.

Jonathan Wrightson, who owns property along Bucks Corner Road, which runs between Highway 58 and Whitehouse Fork Road, has submitted rezoning requests for five separate lots along the street.

He wants to rezone 187, 191 and 199 Bucks Corner Road from B-1 (business) and rezone 175 and 169 Bucks Corner from residential to mobile campers.

All of the...

Minnesota lawmakers increased the state’s spending on housing about ninefold over the next two years, mostly with one-time funding paid for with part of the $17.5 billion surplus.

The $1 billion in new funding (HF2335) will help developers build more affordable apartments, help low- and moderate-income Minnesotans buy their first homes, and provide rental assistance to thousands of households.

Lawmakers also created the first dedicated funding source for housing through a new quarter-cent sales tax in the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. That tax is estimated to raise about $300 million over the next two years, with the...

Following less-than-ideal construction conditions to start the week of May 30, work to provide some Lewes residents with sanitary services has begun.

Teal Construction has started assembling sanitary pipes in a staging area for the Delaware Clean Water Initiative’s pilot program, the Donovan Smith Manufactured Home Park Sewer and Water Extension Project. The Dover-based company started the piping connections June 1.

George, Miles and Buhr engineer Duane Hoffman, GMB’s project representative, said crews will assemble the piping in the staging area prior to delivering it to Donovans Road to minimize unnecessary lane closures. Hoffman said...

The Longmont housing department plans later this month to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to eventually turn the former Royal Mobile Home Park into affordable housing.

The property at 133 S. Coffman St. is currently owned by Longmont Public Works. In this proposed deal, the city’s Housing and Community Investment department plans to use ARPA funds to purchase the property for $2.1 million by the end of this month.

According to a city memo, the September 2013 flood caused severe destruction to the 56 mobile homes at the former Royal Mobile Home Park on the north bank of St. Vrain Creek, just west of Main Street.

Despite news of a pending sale for the Pines Trailer Park at the bay end of Bridge Street in Bradenton Beach, residents and parties privy to the sale have little to say.

Homeowners in the mobile home park, 103 Church Ave., received notice May 8 of an offer from an unknown entity to purchase the park land.

The notice, prepared by attorney David A. Luczak, representing the Pines owners — the Jackson Partnership — said the partnership was considering the offer of $16,250,000 for all park-owned land, mobile homes, recreational vehicles, equipment, materials, vehicles and buildings.

The offer included an initial nonrefundable deposit of $1...

A hedge fund has found a new venture: mobile home parks.

Mobile homeowners across Michigan say rents jumped, maintenance declined and it became nearly impossible to move after their communities came under new ownership. Each park has been purchased by a different LLC, but breadcrumbs trail back to a $1 billion New York-based hedge fund called Alden Global Capital.

Suzanne Clevenger, 64, says conditions have worsened at River Springs Estates since she moved into a doublewide with her husband seven years ago. A flood devastated the Berrien Springs park in 2018. And now she says broken pipes have been a problem for two years – sewage...

"Lucy, I'm home!"

A mobile home in Palm Springs, California, that is now a delightful one-bedroom home, but is rumored to have been Desi Arnaz's makeup trailer for "I Love Lucy," sold in May for $145,000.

The petite closing price actually works out to quite a large price per square foot — especially considering it's just the trailer its new owner purchased and not the land underneath it.

In Palm Springs — home of natural hot springs and celebrity getaways — the median listing home price per square foot is $501. That's more than double the national average of $222, according to Realtor.com.

But in Horizon Mobile Village & RV Park at the...

A proposed manufactured housing project was denied a permit in Richmond, Virginia, despite a growing housing crisis in that city, one so severe it was officially recognized by the city council just two weeks prior to the project’s rejection. 

As Wyatt Gordon explains in Greater Greater Washington, “Beyond the details of the drama between 9th District Councilmember Mike Jones — a rising star in the commonwealth’s Democratic Party — and one of Richmond’s premier housing nonprofits, the impasse boiled down to whether a warehouse should be sited next to single-family housing. The lot Project:HOMES hoped to turn into a production facility for...

WOOSTER ― The city now has the authority to enforce maintenance code violations on manufactured homes following a 6-1 Wooster City Council vote Monday.

This vote came after a back-and-forth discussion about how the city authority will be applied without stepping on the toes of federal and state agencies, each of which regulate specific aspects of manufactured homes.

Changes:Wooster council OKs expansion of manufactured homes in existing mobile home parks

The legislation applies as many housing regulations to the prefabricated dwellings as possible, said John Scavelli, city law director.

The goal, he said, is to see how a city can best...

Sudden rent increases. Maintenance jobs ignored. And eviction notices that catch tenants by surprise.

People living in mobile home parks across Michigan say those issues have become commonplace since a secretive hedge fund bought up their parks.

Rose White is a reporter with MLive who's been investigating the tenants concerns. She spoke with Michigan Radio Morning Edition host Doug Tribou.

Doug Tribou: You spoke to a lot of residents of these mobile home parks. What are some of their main complaints?

Rose White: One of the main ones is big rent increases. Some of them are seeing their rents go up $130 at a time. And a lot of homeowners...