Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Severe storms in the South that killed at least 21 people in Mississippi and Alabama highlight the dangers of being inside a mobile home or manufactured home during severe weather.

Many of the dozens of homes destroyed in the storms were manufactured. In the hardest-hit community of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, 24% of housing units in the county are manufactured homes according to the Census Bureau.

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...

Denise Dougi had to leave all her worldly possessions behind apart from a few essentials when disaster struck at Green Valley Mobile Home Park last Thursday morning.

“It was my sanctuary,” she said. “Nobody lives there but me. I’m really sad not to be able to go into my house with my things.”

Flooding caused a sinkhole behind Dougi’s home, resulting in 17 residents being ordered to evacuate by emergency crews.

Since then, Dougi has been staying with her mother. She has no idea when, or if, she’ll be able to return.

“I’ve just decorated my living room," Dougi said. “I’ve been there three years and I finally felt comfortable enough to start...

The Phoenix City Council voted Wednesday to spend $2.5 million to assist residents of three mobile home parks in finding new housing but stopped short of supporting a controversial zoning move that might have allowed residents to stay.

• The parks are scheduled to close in the next two months to be redeveloped. Residents will be evicted if they don't move willingly.

State of play: The council's decision came after more than four hours of emotional testimony from park residents facing possible eviction.

• Children who missed school to attend the meeting, seniors who lived in the parks for decades and parents afraid their families will be...

MOUNT WASHINGTON, Ky. — The residents of the Live Oaks Mobile Home park and Spectrum News 1 are finally hearing from the management company about multiple rent hikes.

Spectrum News 1 began investigating resident claims in January and hasn’t been able to speak with management. The company wouldn’t return our calls, so the Mount Washington city council asked them to watch our stories and respond.

Heather Thacker spoke before the city council on Monday, March 27. Thacker works for Lasso Capital, the New York City-based private investment company that owns Live Oaks.

She was at the meeting because Live Oaks wants a nearby property to be...

In 2008, Caroline Hardy and her husband, Bill, downsized into a mobile home park in South Aberdeen. They both retired a few years later — Caroline from 15 years at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, and then 30 years at Lamb Grays Harbor, which supplied timber mills with machinery; Bill from 38 years at Marshall’s Garden and Pet Store — and started collecting social security checks.

There, they were “real happy,” and “the neighbors are wonderful and everyone gets along,” Caroline said. This would be their “forever home,” they thought.

Now they aren’t so sure.

Last June, the couple — and their many neighbors at the park — pulled a letter...

A young girl approached the podium on March 22 and looked up at the members of the Phoenix City Council seated before her. "My name is Michelle," she said in Spanish. "I'm being displaced."

Last April, Michelle's family was one of the dozens living in the Periwinkle Mobile Home Park that received an unexpected eviction notice from Grand Canyon University. According to the notice, residents had just six months to leave their longtime homes.

In the months since, Periwinkle residents have joined forces with two other Phoenix mobile home parks whose inhabitants are also facing eviction. The other parks are Las Casitas — which is located at 18th...

For the last decade, Jeanneil Marzan paid $645 a month to rent a space for her manufactured home at Sierra Royal Mobile Park. 

When the first rent increase of $40 came in September 2022, the Sparks resident found it reasonable even living on a fixed income. 

Everything changed in December after a multi-billion dollar global private equity investor, Carlyle Group, bought the park and notified its residents of the 151-home community that rent would be increasing to $1,010 per month.

Marzan, along with residents of her community, pleaded with state lawmakers Monday to consider rent stabilization legislation for mobile home parks to regulate...

Mobile home residents in California face an outsize risk of failing utility systems, flooding and fires as a result of infrastructure that frequently hasn’t been updated or repaired in decades. 

In 1984, California passed a law to help remedy this: a loan program, paid into by the residents themselves, to buy and in later iterations, fix their parks.

But that solution, for the last 10 years, has helped only one of California’s 4,500 mobile home parks.

State administrators approved a single loan application, in 2021, from a fund now worth $33.5 million, the state’s Housing and Community Development Department confirmed to CalMatters. The...

DAVIS COUNTY, Utah — Pat Blake is the manager of two mobile home parks in Davis County, whose selfless and kind-hearted nature knows no bounds.

“She doesn't buy herself clothing. She rather take that money and help people here.” said Pat’s daughter and Dream Team nominator, Anita York.

She regularly arranges for a Bountiful Food Pantry bus to visit each park twice a month, providing tenants with all the groceries they could ever need.

She also uses money from her own pocket to help children with school supplies and holiday gifts.

“Because that's what we're here for is to help other people. They need help. And that's what I'm here for,"...

MAHOMET, Ill. (WCCU) — Kodiak Property Management bought Candlewood Estates in Mahomet back in September, and according to residents they've had a number of issues since then. Many residents still don't have their new leases despite asking for them continually, and those who do have their leases say they see a number of issues and concerns.

"In the new lease, some people have released the new lease in the community, and it states that the lot rent has been $525 for five years?" Jaelyn Survance asked her husband.

"2018, yes five years, which is not true,” said Tate Survance.

Jaelyn and Tate are former residents of Candlewood Estates, and...

LAKELAND — A few days before St. Patrick’s Day, a swarm of green-clad volunteers busily dug, sawed and drilled outside a mobile home in a rural patch of the Kathleen area. Posts went into the ground, preparing for a front deck and wheelchair ramp to be installed at the front of the structure.

Though it didn’t reflect the expected image, the activity was part of a Habitat for Humanity project. The Lakeland chapter of the international nonprofit is providing both materials and muscle to help the owner, Sunil Persaud, with a complete renovation of the decades-old manufactured home.

It is just the second time that Lakeland Habitat for...

Property investor Josh Scronce told Truesdale city leaders last week that he followed through with his purchase of the Belaire Mobile Home Park in February, and is taking immediate action to restore the run-down neighborhood.

Scronce first announced in January that his business, Signature Investment Group, was planning to purchase the mobile home park.

Since closing on the sale Feb. 17, the first course of action has been to become familiar with residents and assess the condition of various mobile homes that need to either be renovated or removed, Scronce said.

“I’ve met about 75 percent of the people, and so far, so good,” Scronce told...

To provide its latest home for a family in need, an area housing nonprofit took a different approach that it believes is the first of its kind among its regional peers.

Habitat for Humanity–Powhatan recently provided a mother and son with its first modular home, marking what Executive Director Susan Winiecki described as a new approach for Habitat affiliates in the region to provide lower-income families with housing.

Also known as prefabricated or factory-built homes, modular homes are a type of manufactured home that are mostly built in sections off-site and then delivered and assembled. The home is placed on a foundation using a crane,...

OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) — Rent could be going up again for seniors that live inside the Laguna Vista Mobile Home Park, a senior community, but the seniors say they can't quite keep up, especially on a fixed income.

This mobile home is all Frank Kazerski knows.

"I've lived here since 2009," said Kazerski.

He doesn't know what could be next if his rent is increased again.

"The rent portion is $631. The rest is for trash, sewer, water bill," he said.

Every July, the residents expect an increase of some sort to account for inflation but the owner of the park filed an application to have rent raisedeven more.

"I can't be making these extra...

Rockrose Ranch at Lake Conroe, a 700-home community, will celebrate its grand opening March 25 in Willis, developer Inspire Communities announced in a March 16 news release.

The community spans 170 acres at 11848 Calvary Road, just west of I-45, and features a gated active adult village as well as a section of homes open to all ages, according to the release. Rockrose Ranch has prices starting in the $110,000s to $220,000s and floor plans ranging from two to three bedrooms, two bathrooms, front porches and open-concept living areas.

According to its website, Inspire Communities claims to provide affordable, modern manufactured homes for...

Three Phoenix mobile home parks are expected to close in the next two months to be redeveloped into pricier housing projects, impacting more than 120 families.

State of play: Some Phoenix council members are trying to force park owners to keep them open, but they're likely to hit several political and legal hurdles.

Why it matters: Mobile homes are among few affordable housing options left in metro Phoenix. Despite their name, they are very difficult to relocate, meaning residents are often left without housing when parks close.

What's happening: Earlier this month, at a meeting to discuss how to help residents at risk of eviction, a...

Can recreational vehicles and mobile homes mix?

That’s the question at issue in a Baldwin County land use debate that’s gone to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s desk.

Last week, the Baldwin County Commission authorized a request for an opinion from the attorney general’s office on whether the county can legally prohibit RV park sites in a mobile home park, a rule in its subdivision regulations.

The question comes down to whether the rule is a matter of zoning or a matter of health and safety.

According to the request sent to the AG’s office, an unnamed owner of a mobile home park wanted to add RV sites to his park, which is...

Bobby Riley moved to Stockton Park Village to live out his days in peace.

In 2018, the 87-year-old retired construction worker tucked his used camper trailer into the farthest lot of the horseshoe-shaped mobile home court off a tree-lined street in the outskirts of Stockton. The community’s handyman, Buzz, helped him build a porch and a patio to ground his trailer and enclosed it with a white wooden fence. He set up a swingset on the grassy common area across the way for when his granddaughter, Brooke, came to visit.

But the little piece of heaven he sought soon became a living hell.

Park owners Howard and Anne Fairbanks appear to have...

indsay and Eric Wood bought and flipped a few houses in their day. Still, they didn’t have a home of their own. But in 2017, after years of being subject to the rising whims of the rental market in Marin County, they said, “enough.”

The pair decided their best path to homeownership was to shrink their footprint and go tiny.

They found a contractor to build them a tiny home, a compact and efficiently designed residence on wheels that would have all the comforts they needed but not a square inch of wasted space.

“We had spent a total of $100,000 in rent in seven years. That pretty much could have paid for a tiny home,” Lindsay said.

Lindsay...

RICHMOND, Va. -- Catarino Salvez Galvez and his family have lived in a mobile home park on Richmond's Southside for six years.

The home he owns currently is falling apart.

The floor has sunken in, the roof caved, and it has cracked in multiple places.

The windows do not close, keeping it cold during the winter and swelteringly hot during the summer months.

His 11-year-old daughter has been sick because of the conditions, he said.

"I don't feel good sharing it, I don't want to share the conditions I'm living in," Galvez said.

It's a reality for many of his neighbors who own trailers in his neighborhood but cannot afford to fix them.

"It's...

A Superior Court judge has rejected a move to reverse his decision that determined a Wyoming investment firm was the rightful buyer of the Pocasset Mobile Home Park.

Judge Michael Callan's original Jan. 11 decision seemed to end a years-long legal battle between Crown Communities, LLC, and the Pocasset Park Association, with both sides seeking ownership of the Bourne park, also known as The Park at Pocasset.

The mobile home park has about 170 residents at its prime location off Barlow's Landing Road. The current owner is Philip Austin, trustee of the Charles W. Austin Trust.

The association would have been able to purchase the park,...