Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott and the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) announced the launch of the Manufactured Home Improvement and Repair Program (MHIR)(link is external), offering financial assistance to manufactured home communities (commonly known as mobile home park) as well as current and prospective manufactured home owners. The program, funded by $4 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), will provide financial assistance for park improvements, home repair and foundation installation.

“The MHIR program is focused on revitalizing an important part of the State’s affordable...

Lacey City Council on Thursday approved a plan to study mobile homes in the area, a year after a resident raised concerns about the future of his own home. In December 2021, the resident sought a rezone of Mountain Greens, a mobile home park in the 5200 block of 55th Lane Southeast, wanting to change the zoning from low-density residential. The resident feared that under its current zoning the mobile home park could be sold and residents evicted so the property could be redeveloped. Mobile home owners own their homes, but typically rent the underlying land from the park owner.

The rezone request was not added to the Lacey Planning...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Residents of Euclid Beach Mobile Home Park will be meeting this afternoon to voice their displeasure over the Neighborhood plan The Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC) announced Thursday that they will be displacing the residents and turn the land into green space as part of the Cleveland Metroparks System

Over 100 people will have their homes lose their homes.

The mobile home park sits on the site of the former iconic amusement park Euclid Beach Park, will become part of the city’s park system with hopes that it will be managed by the Cleveland Metroparks.

This comes after an extensive land-use study and...

A former manager of a mobile home park in Mount Vernon is facing charges of theft and fraud after police say he lied to his employer about damages in the 2020 derecho.

Antonio Govea, 44, of Mount Vernon, is charged with ongoing criminal conduct, first-degree theft, money laundering, first-degree fraudulent practice and two counts of forgery.

Govea was employed as the park manager of Colonial Estates Mobile Home Park at 1225 First Ave. NW, Mount Vernon, between July 1, 2020, and May 15, 2022, according to a criminal complaint.

After the derecho, Govea told Birch Realty, the company that owns the park, that certain mobile homes there had...

EAST LANSING — Four months ago, 77-year-old Lois Hagy thought she might have to leave her home after 20 years.

Last March she and more than a dozen residents who live in manufactured homes in The Reserve at Falcon Pointe received a letter stating they had to move because the property owner, FP Investors, LLC, was changing the land use to a single-family condominium site.

So the residents, who own their homes but not the property they sit on, were told they had to move by March 11, 2023, or the company would evict them.

“We were supposed to be out of here,” Hagy said.

The company has since had a change of heart.

It communicated its new...

RATTLEBORO, Vt. —

The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is hoping to improve water infrastructure in manufactured housing communities, also known as mobile home parks.

“We are taking advantage of unprecedented federal funding to work with manufactured housing communities across the state to make those kinds of investments in drinking water, wastewater and drainage infrastructure,” said Julie Moore, Agency of Natural resources secretary.

The agency’s Healthy Homes Program has almost $25 million in federal money available from the American Rescue Plan to fix water infrastructure issues in mobile home parks.

“We haven't had a lot of...

Where streets once looked more like rivers in Acampo, life has returned to parts of San Joaquin County evacuated during January's winter storms.

Christmas weekend four Rice County families experienced emergencies related to frozen water pipes, one of which ended up bursting. Fortunately, the Mobile Home Rehabilitation Project (MHRP) assisted the families in identifying and arranging for repairs, as well as coordinating with insurance to cover the costs.

Without access to the MHRP, these families may have been without water and ultimately without housing during the holidays.

The MHRP serves mobile home residents who live within the boundaries of the Faribault or Northfield school districts and are from low-income households, and it prioritizes families with young...

As mobile homes continue to be displaced by development, a bipartisan bill aims to increase funding to a program to provide relief to those impacted. 

Mobile homes have been vanishing across the Valley most often being replaced by luxury apartments or similar developments. The Phoenix City Council earlier this year approved $300,000 for legal services for three mobile home parks facing similar issues but advocates have said it hasn’t been enough. 

The proposed legislation would increase the allotments dispersed by the Mobile Home Relocation Fund by more than 60% for some cases. It also increases the amount the landlord must pay to the...

I commend Gov. Tina Kotek’s bold vision in dealing with our current housing emergency, (“Kotek homebuilding target is ambitious, potentially costly and politically fraught, experts say,” Jan. 29). I would suggest that we don’t ignore Oregon’s strong manufactured home industry as one pathway for getting more homes built quickly and affordably.

Modern factory-built homes are manufactured to high standards. They can be built and installed much more quickly than a site-built home. A loosening of zoning restrictions that say where they can be located would go a long way toward meeting the governor’s housing goal and would provide good jobs...

PRINCETON, W.Va. (WVVA) - Mobile home park residents across Mercer County, W.Va. said Thursday they’re facing increased pressure to vacate their homes. Three different residents WVVA spoke with said they received the exact same notice on Wednesday -- adding requirements from managerial approval to sell one’s home, to requirements surrounding lawn care, pet ownership, home alterations and much more. Those new requirements all came following a near-doubling of lot rents in at least five mobile home parks in the county, all of which those we spoke with Thursday currently reside in.

Residents WVVA spoke with said such requirements had never...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — 8 On Your Side is helping a local mobile home community fight an unexpected rent and tax increase, cutting through the red tape and showing them a path to challenging the double whammy.

8 On Your Side talked to residents at the Sunshine Mobile Home Park in St. Petersburg who say the latest rent like has them feeling devastated.

“It usually matches the social security increase each year, close to that, but this time it’s almost three times as much,” Donna Pettaway said.

According to a notice from the park’s owner, residents will also be charged $957 for the ad valorem tax and $42 for the non-ad valorem tax.

“Most...

The manufactured housing industry has been on an upward trajectory in the past decade. Drawn by the strong and stable income manufactured homes communities, an increasing number of institutional investors and owner-operators have been diving into the segment. And during periods of economic uncertainty, this asset type is very resilient because it provides a much-needed affordable housing option.

“Mobile home parks are historically a recession-proof asset due to the shortage of affordable housing across the country,” Kevan Enger, partner & manufactured housing director at Capstone Cos., told Multi-Housing News. “It does well in good times...

Rice County commissioners warily took the first steps toward what they say will be a long process to protect the residents in its "last affordable housing" against "bad corporate players."

Commissioners are mulling an ordinance that would require mobile-home communities to give notice if the property is going up for sale and give resident associations the first opportunity to buy the community. Rice County would be the first to enact such requirements, prompting concern from some commissioners over whether it would be legal. 

"I kept reading these articles about other states and these hedge funds and giant corporations buying up these...

Alongside his mother, aunt, brother and neighbors, Alexis Ortiz lifted shovelful after shovelful of muck from his driveway. It was a gray mid-January afternoon and the first day of real respite from the series of destructive atmospheric rivers that swept through the region earlier in the month.

Twenty-nine years old with short black hair, a stocky build and a countenance softened by exhaustion, Ortiz moved slowly as he stepped away from his muddy driveway and into his muddy living room, brushing past the red notice from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office declaring the structure unsafe to inhabit.

The bleak scene inside offered few...

A Puyallup mobile home park that housed 42 families now sits empty. The few remaining families moved out of Meridian Mobile Estates on Jan. 31, city spokesperson Eric Johnson wrote in an email. One family was finishing moving their belongings the following day. Demolition is expected sometime this spring. The mobile home park at 202 27th Ave. SE had 15 families who hadn’t yet moved in early December, and they had until Jan. 31 to relocate.

Timberlane Partners bought the property the mobile home park sits on for $6.5 million in 2021. The developer plans to build 230 apartments there. “At this point, it is still very early in the process,...

WILTON, Iowa — Dozens of residents at South Towne Mobile Home Park in Wilton, Iowa have had enough after their rent has gone up 54% the past eight months. 

They are outraged at the new management company, Kodiak Property Management, based out of Detroit. They took over about a year ago, and since then residents have not felt at home.

"It was $250 a month rent when I bought the trailer and moved in thinking that I would be able to save money to eventually have a down payment to purchase my own home. And instead, the rent is now $385," said resident Phyllis Wood.

Residents joined together to meet with area lawmakers at a community...

RIVERDALE — Jason Williams has lived at Lesley's Mobile Home Park in Riverdale for about 22 years. On May 31, however, the park will no longer exist.

City officials rezoned the park for development last summer, Williams said, and residents were given a nine-month notice to move out. Park management offered some financial assistance — $3,000 for those who moved out by the end of January — but Williams said that amount doesn't nearly cover the cost of moving a trailer to a new park. His own costs have been around $11,000 to move his trailer just 12 miles, he said.

Williams said 50-plus families will have nowhere to go come the end of May....

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Residents at West Acres Mobile Home Park on the west side of Steamboat Springs are facing a nearly 50% increase in lot rent that is set to take effect April 1.

A letter posted on the doors of homes in the park was two sentences. The first said rent was increasing and the second announced the base new rate of $1,032 a month for most of the park’s units.

For most residents currently paying closer to $690 a month, the increase translates to nearly $350 more each month for the ground they rent beneath the mobile homes they own.

“People that live in West Acres are the workforce of our community,” said Irene Avitia, who...

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Olmsted County Public Health began working with the City of Rochester over two years ago in an effort to address ongoing public health and safety concerns at Bob’s Trailer Park.

According to the city, the goal of this collaboration has been focused on creating a safe and healthy environment and bringing the park into compliance with applicable Minnesota laws, administrative rules, and City ordinances and codes.

Olmsted County Housing has worked with impacted individuals to find alternative housing and has shared information on housing resources since December 20, 2022. It continues to work with the City of...

Manufactured homes — also known as factory-built homes — are an increasingly popular housing option that can be more affordable to buy and own than site-built homes. If you are thinking about buying a manufactured home, you should consider how your home will be titled.

In contrast to a site-built home, a manufactured home is built in a factory before being delivered and permanently installed where you live. Depending on who owns the land you live on, you can title your home as personal or real property.

Real property, often called real estate, refers to land and any structures affixed to the...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WSBT) — A mobile home park shutdown is causing its 41 families to scramble to pack up and move.

The management tells them it is due to mounting maintenance expenses.

People living at Hollywood Mobile Home Park have 180 days to move out.

Those WSBT spoke with say they are not getting any move-out assistance and have to pay rent, all while trying to save up for a new place.

Homeowners at the trailer park want answers to the “blindsiding” news.

Some have lived there since the 60s.

In the eviction letter, sent out this week, it says ongoing infrastructure issues have forced the park to shut down.

Residents say otherwise.

"If...

Nancy DeCamp can no longer bear to enter the home on lot 257. Her sister Tootie lived here, just a golf cart ride from where Nancy shares a place with her husband in their manufactured home community in central Pinellas County. After Tootie died in October, the DeCamps tried, without success, to sell her home. “It’s still Tootie’s house,” Nancy DeCamp said, her eyes welling. “It’s very hard to be there.”

The DeCamps never expected this problem in Caribbean Isles, nestled between Largo and Seminole. Selling in the 55-and-older park, their real estate agent said, was once so easy she scarcely had time to stake “for sale” signs. Then the...

OLYMPIA — State lawmakers are considering legislation to slow down rent increases for apartments, single-family homes, and in mobile home communities where hundreds of seniors live on the North Olympic Peninsula.

The bills would add muscle to the Residential Landlord Tenant Act and the Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord Tenant Act.

The new laws would add roadblocks to selling manufactured-mobile home parks, a last bastion of affordable housing for senior citizens, and insulate mobile home community residents from steep rent hikes.

It also would prohibit predatory rent practices in the home rental industry and beef up state laws protecting...

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield City Council approved a conditional permit for Leisure Living Estates during its meeting Monday, but has asked the owner of the trailer park to clean up several nuisances in the next three months.

Leisure Living Estates is a trailer park, or manufactured home park, on the west edge of Fairfield that is owned by Don Davis of rural Mt. Pleasant. In March 2022, Fairfield City Administrator Aaron Kooiker sent a letter to Davis indicating that the city had received complaints about the lots at Davis’s trailer park.

“On the majority of these lots, you will see dilapidated trailer homes, some of which do not even appear...