Allan Ayotte, 69, lives in a mobile home park in Norridgewock. He retired at 67 years old due to health issues with no pension or retirement funds; so when he saw a mobile home for sale within his budget, he bought it. He lived there for three months before the owners sold the park, and Ayotte says he received notice that rent would be increasing 93%.
Ayotte told his story in testimony for a bill that would prevent just such dramatic rent increases in parks like his, LD 1723, “An Act to Amend the Laws Governing Manufactured Housing Communities to Prevent Excessive Rent and Fees Increases.”
“Less than probably an hour after they posted...
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The logic in this article is so flawed that we have to break it down paragraph by paragraph:
Housing advocates say the problem is part of a broader pattern tied to housing being treated as a commodity and source of investment rather than a human right. Nyawal Lia of Housing Justice Maine and the Maine People’s Alliance, of which Beacon is a project, noted that this shift from locally owned to investor-controlled communities has drastically altered the nature of manufactured housing life.
Interesting premise that mobile home parks are not supposed to see their properties as an investment but a simple provider of a “human right”. Yes, this writer is a full supporter of the “Free Rent Movement” in which the assets of landlords are to be freely given to the people. Marx called this “socialism” – at least that’s the honest term.
“A lot of these communities have had the same owners for a long time — sometimes, for generations,” Lia said. “Residents know them. But then some rich investor comes in and starts just pulling money out of residents’ pockets, and in many cases creating a situation where they lose everything. It’s no way for people to live.”
Sure, a lot of mom-and-pop owners have not been running their parks as businesses for the past few decades. But that all ends with their demise, regardless of who buys them (professional investor or the tenants). Here’s the problem. Mom-and-pop had no mortgage on the park so they could literally charge a rent no greater than the sum of utilities and property tax. But when they die the heirs are going to sell to the highest bidder, and that new mortgage will burden the park with a giant monthly payment that will take the new rent metric to a level many times higher. That’s why, even when the tenants buy the park, the rent goes up hundreds of dollars per month to break even. The only solution? Just take the park away from the owner and give it to the tenants right? Once again, that’s what they simply call “socialism”. Why sugarcoat it?
A recent report by the Genesis Fund documents the accelerating trend of manufactured housing community acquisitions by profit-driven investors and reinforces the bill’s premise: without action, Maine risks losing a key source of affordable housing just as the state faces a severe housing shortage.
So now we’re getting more honest. The goal is to take away mobile home park owner rights because it’s the only way to solve Maine’s housing shortage. And that’s complete “socialism”. No more, no less.
Now that we’ve established the fact that Maine is apparently wanting to enter a new era of socialism in the Pine Tree State, let’s just call it by its name and quit hiding behind a bunch of B.S.
As for me, I’ll just stop buying the only product that Maine ever produced that was worthwhile: L.L. Bean. Their quality has gone down the tubes anyway so it’s no great loss.
