Mobile Home Park News Briefing

MADELIA — After a 15-year wait, a Madelia mobile home community is finally getting its community room. The space will double as a storm shelter for its 150 residents.

The facility is scheduled for a fall construction start with an anticipated opening of spring or summer of 2024, said Marjory Gilsrud, Madelia Mobile Village Cooperative president.

“This building will act as a gathering place for our residents,” she said.

The primary funding source for the $800,000 building was the state Legislature-funded Manufactured Home Community Redevelopment Grant Program. The grant will provide funds for a facility offering safety from storms and...

In May, La Plata County Assessor Carrie Woodson informed property owners of a staggering rise in the value of their assets. Based on sales that took place between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, the median increase in property value was 20%.

But one category of properties stood out: mobile home parks.

The county’s mobile home parks – once a bastion of affordable housing – doubled in value, and rents are following close behind.

And when tenants such as Alethea Morris, a resident of Durango’s Junction Creek Mobile Home Park, are asked if parks are becoming unaffordable, the answer is unequivocal: “For a single mama bear who’s got two...

Housing isn't just about buildings and land; it's about the people and communities they shelter. With that in mind, Sebastopol is stepping up by revising its mobile home rent regulations. This move aligns Sebastopol with other cities that recognize the importance of safeguarding the rights of mobile home residents.

Owning a mobile home while renting the land it is on presents a unique challenge. Sebastopol’s city manager, Larry McLaughlin, points out that these residents are both homeowners and tenants, a duality that demands tailored protections.

Sebastopol...

The owners of Sandpiper Mobile Home Park were again conditionally denied approval for their ill-conceived solar panel project by the Architectural Review Board. We are all supportive of solar power but not to line the pockets of property owners. The options they were given were to terminate the project entirely or present a reduced version to the Carpinteria Planning Commission. I don’t think they will accept either one because of their huge investment in this project. My guess is that they will come back with the original development plan and risk a planning commission denial. If denied, things could become complicated because of their...

As Texas’ second-hottest summer on record comes to a close, high heat continues, and residents of a Denton mobile home park say the property’s ban on window air-conditioning units has led to sweltering indoor temperatures.

“It’s like I’m baking in an oven,” Mike, a resident who asked to be referred to by his nickname, told the Denton Record-Chronicle.

With excessive heat warnings nearly every day in Denton County, public health experts have warned against the dangers of high temperatures. But for some residents of Ashli Oaks who say they cannot afford to fix their central AC units, the park’s enforcement of a ban on window units has left...

In a sign of how dire the Coachella Valley’s affordable housing shortage is, new residents are continuing to stream into an east valley mobile home park with tainted drinking water and myriad other health and safety issues, and county officials have been unable to stop them from moving in. 

County officials have spent the past few years working to relocate residents from Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal, utilizing a $30 million grant of state funding secured in the state budget by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia in 2021. But officials have struggled to quell the issue of new residents moving in, creating a cycle of new families moving into...

HOULTON, Maine — After nearly six years of undrinkable chemically contaminated water flowing through their pipes at the Houlton Mobile Home Park, residents will soon get relief, according to the park’s owner.

Once the final piece of financing is approved that is.

State testing showed unsafe levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the well water almost as soon as Tony Brettkelly purchased the mobile home park off the Old Woodstock Road in Houlton about six years ago, he said.

Park management has been supplying residents with bottled water ever since, although the contaminated water is used for laundry, showers and...

Some of the most enduring images of Hurricane Idalia will be the tree-battered and flood-damaged mobile and manufactured homes in the storm’s wake — a sight that’s become all too familiar in the coastal US. As Florida’s communities rebuild, government leaders everywhere must take steps to protect a key source of affordable housing in the age of climate change.

Nationwide, manufactured homes make up around 5% of occupied housing units and about 7% in Florida, according to American Housing Survey data. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is in the business of building them (Clayton Homes), and investors of all sizes (private equity and...

A new state law in Washington aims to give tenants of manufactured housing communities the opportunity to purchase and own the lots they rent from landowners.

“Manufactured home communities are often sold off-market,” says Victoria O’Banion, Spokane-based marketing and acquisitions specialist with Northwest Cooperative Development Center. “When the park wasn’t listed, residents didn’t know what was happening and that the park was being sold.”

The legislation, known by some as the Notice of Opportunity to Compete to Purchase bill, was signed into law on April 6 and now requires owners to share their intentions to sell with residents,...

AFTER building a dream tiny home for $25,000, a person who wanted to live off the grid found out they had nowhere to park it.

But thanks to a clever letter, they now live for $350 a month and zero mortgage on a Christmas tree farm.

L. Gilbert (@_l_gilbert_), who uses they/them pronouns, is an artist living in California who became sick of living with roommates in the nation’s most expensive state.

As a way to make their own affordable home, they built a DIY tiny home using salvaged lumber and new materials like a trailer and solar panels.

In a recent video for Kirsten Dirksen’s YouTube channel, Gilbert gave a tour of their unique tiny...

The River Terrace RV and Trailer Park is just upstream of the Kenai River Bridge in Soldotna. To the right, there are temporary and seasonal RVs parked along the banks of the river. To the left, about 40 trailer homes house a low-income community, many of them seniors.

On July 27, trailer park residents got notice to vacate by May 3, 2024. The notice says the closure is related to “planned changes in the future use of the land.”

Daniel Lynch has lived in the trailer park since 1995.

“There’s no need for these people to become homeless, and that’s what’s gonna happen to the majority of them,” Lynch said.

He said there are few options for...

It's hard enough to afford or rent one home in Denver, let alone an entire mobile home park. The residents of Capital City/Montevista Mobile Home Park in the Westwood neighborhood defeated the odds when they raised nearly $11.5 million to buy the land their homes sit on.

This is a community of hardworking families in Denver, and after the mobile park home went up for sale last year, the community rallied to find solutions.

After ROC also known as Resident Owned Communities pulled out of helping out in February due to safety concerns. The community was worried, but then Sharing Connexion, a nonprofit that connects nonprofits and affordable...

Residents of Little Woods Mobile Villa on Lakeville Highway worry they might end up homeless if the management company running their mobile home park makes good on its threat to close it.

That was the message of many park residents as they spoke out against a possible closure during a news conference held Tuesday evening at the park and broadcast over social media.

The news conference – organized by members of Littlewoods Neighbors United, a group of residents that formed in response to the threat of the park closure – was the latest in an ongoing saga of upheaval at mobile home parks throughout the county.

In Petaluma, an update by the...

Sept 1 (Reuters) - A group of the country's largest corporate managers of mobile home communities and a market data provider were sued in U.S. court on Thursday for allegedly conspiring to inflate rental prices for older and low-income residents.

Two Illinois residents who rented lots for their manufactured homes filed the prospective class action in Chicago federal court against Datacomp Appraisal Systems and nine other companies that own or have controlling interests in more than 150 housing communities across the country.

The lawsuit alleges that the corporate owners shared competitively sensitive information about lot rentals and...

Today, Governor Polis and the Business Funding & Incentives Division of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) announced three recipients of the Innovative Housing Incentive program (IHIP) grant and the launch of the loan component of the IHIP program. This round of grant funding will directly incentivize the creation of 490 affordable and attainable housing units across Colorado. 

“I am committed to creating more housing for every Colorado budget, and by supporting businesses building more efficient housing options, we can lower housing costs and save Coloradans money,” said Governor Polis. “This...

The Porterville City Council will look at the possibility of a significant increase in sewer and refuse rates during a study session tonight.

The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. today in the City Hall council chambers. At tonight's meeting the council will consider providing direction to city staff on what options should be taken concerning increased rates. A public hearing could then be held at one of the council's regularly scheduled meetings in November in which the council could adopt increased rates.

The meeting can be viewed on YouTube at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5KuhSrNMNL9nwHJVtnJvvA

Those interested...

At a recent workshop, Milford City Council heard from Judson Malone, Executive Director of Springboard Collaborative, about a pallet village constructed in Georgetown designed to address the homeless issue. Springboard Collaborative works in partnership with other agencies, including First State Community Action and others to not only provide housing for those who are experiencing homelessness, but also help them reach goals that could provide them a steady income, housing and a stable lifestyle.

“What would a city council meeting be that you talked about pallet homes and I didn’t have something to say?” Martha Gery, founder of Milford...

Spencer, IA (KICD)– The Spencer City Council met in special session Monday evening to hear an appeal from a local trailer park owner to have electricity fully restored to his property more than a year after it was turned off due safety concerns.

The appeal stems from a decision rendered earlier this year by the city’s Electrical Board that kept power from being fully restored to the trailer park on West 18th Street.

Attorney Anne Quail represented master electrician Lane Schindler and property owner Bill Caskey and asked that the original verdict be overturned citing a section of Iowa code that she says was not taken under...

The recent Novato City Council meeting was a textbook example of political malpractice.

The issue was the potential sale of the Marin Valley Mobile Country Club. The facility consists of 325 manufactured homes owned and is occupied by 410 Novato residents . They are all over age 55 and 41% have low or very low incomes.

The balance is working folks who saved to buy a manufactured house on land owned by the city.

Events were precipitated by Marin County Civil Grand Jury’s report, “Novato’s Chronic Fiscal Deficits: A Call to Action.” It focused on the poor state of Novato’s fiscal management. The report was in part based on a misleading...

SEQUIM — To help preserve manufactured home parks as more affordable housing options in Sequim, city council members recently enacted a six-month moratorium on redevelopment applications for those parks if it is for any project other than manufactured homes.

For the moratorium, city staff were directed to consider zoning options, such as a manufactured home overlay to protect park residents from potentially losing their homes in a redevelopment project.

Council members unanimously made the decision for a moratorium on Aug. 14 in response to continued concern from manufactured home residents about losing their homes to potential...

Residents of the Donovan-Smith Manufactured Home Community had the first of two chances to tell Lewes city leaders what they think of proposed zoning changes that would bring their community up to code.

The Aug. 24 meeting was conducted in English with a Spanish interpreter.

Lewes Mayor Andrew Williams and city council members went over the ground rules and addressed the top six concerns they’ve heard from residents.

Next, City Planning and Building Manager Janelle Cornwell took the podium to explain definitions of terms like conditional use and text amendment, go over details of the proposed zoning ordinance and dispel rumors. It only...

Soul Cotton, 53, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer three months ago. He uses a walker to tread the gravel and dirt driveways of the makeshift trailer park where he’s lived the past six years.

Amid a ramshackle assemblage of recreational vehicles, trailer homes, auto parts and junk, Adrian Cholula Gonzalez, his wife, Yasmin Lara, and their autistic son also have put down roots here.

Elizabeth Peterson, 64, has lived here with her daughter for 12 years. Peterson, who has a medical condition that causes swelling in her left leg and limits her mobility, cares for her daughter, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child.

Along...

A trailer park home set in the Hamptons has hit the market for an astonishing $4.4 million proving that location really is everything. 

Far from being trailer trash, the 2,150-square-foot dwelling, built in 2015, would set a 2023 record if it sells for the eye-watering price. 

Set within the Montauk Shores 'upscale' trailer park, the property commands a price that rivals that of luxury homes in the area. 

The two bedroom, two bathroom property sits just 75 feet from the Atlantic Ocean and the beach at Ditch Plains - a renowned surfing spot. 

'This outstanding modular home boasts two bedrooms and two bathrooms and is situated right next to...

SUPERIOR — Douglas County officials will be seeking proposals to clean up the north and south Country Acres trailer parks in Parkland.

The County Board approved spending up to $200,000 Thursday, Aug. 17 to remove the mobile homes that remain on the two sites. Funding for the project will come from available the American Rescue Plan Act money allocated to Douglas County.

The project will be done in three phases — asbestos assessment, asbestos removal and removal of mobile homes.

The goal is to get the work done before winter, said County Board Chairman Mark Liebaert.

“We’re looking for at least three (proposals) in each separate category,”...

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.

Carolyn and Brett Matesen purchased a small, single-family home in Salt Lake City’s Ballpark neighborhood about five years ago.

While the house was small, the lot was large and they wanted to put an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on the property. They would live in it once they retired, enabling them to rent out the front house for extra income.

Rather than building another house on the lot, they purchased a prefabricated unit from Stack Homes, a Utah-based company that sells and...