{"id":7759,"date":"2012-05-22T23:29:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T03:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=7759"},"modified":"2012-05-22T23:29:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T03:29:05","slug":"another-post-about-manufactured-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/22\/another-post-about-manufactured-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"Another post about manufactured housing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I know I\u2019ve written this same post every few months about manufactured homes (or \u201cmobile homes\u201d or \u201ctrailer parks\u201d). But it keeps happening. It\u2019s always happening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All that changes are the names of the towns, of the parks, of the councils and legislatures, and of the desperate homeowners explaining to reporters that they just don\u2019t know what they\u2019re going to do.<\/p>\n

Writing for The Nation,<\/em> Laura Flanders notes the vital importance of manufactured housing for Americans over the age of 65. Manufactured homes, Flanders writes, are \u201cthe largest source of unsubsidized housing still affordable for the middle class.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how she introduces her story, \u201cAffordable Housing for Seniors in the Cross Hairs in Chicago<\/a>,\u201d which focuses on the familiar theme of economic insecurity, anxiety and a lack of legal or market protections for those who own manufactured homes, but pay rent on the land those homes sit on.<\/p>\n

Flanders introduces us to Sam Zell, a \u201cbillionaire property baron\u201d who owns \u201chundreds of manufactured home communities that cater to senior citizens\u201d through his company, Equity Life Style Properties.<\/p>\n

The seniors who live in ELS communities have bought their homes, but they rent the plot on which their houses stand. Since Zell started buying up manufactured home communities, he has made millions by cutting services and raising rent. For retirees like \u2026 Helen Honeycutt, who came to Chicago from an ELS community in Los Osos, Calif., acquisition by Zell has turned what she thought was a well-planned retirement in a rent-controlled community into an insecure experience that threatens her nest-egg home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we paid $85,000 for a manufactured home fourteen years ago, we were looking to have no mortgage, low overhead and a lifestyle we could afford,\u201d Honeycutt told me in Chicago. When ELS bought the property ten years ago, they started hiking rents and pressuring the county to eliminate rent control.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I live in constant fear that the county will give up the fight against Sam Zell\u2019s deep-pocket lawsuits and we\u2019ll be priced out,\u201d explains Honeycutt. ELS says their tenants can move if they don\u2019t like it. \u201cBut my home is a 1,900-square-foot triple-wide. It\u2019s old. I can\u2019t move it two feet.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, this is why Zell\u2019s \u201cfree market\u201d claims are hogwash. Mobile-home land rents are not a free market. \u201cTenants can move if they don\u2019t like it\u201d only applies when tenants can move<\/em>. Many of these \u201ctenants\u201d cannot move their homes at all, while others can only do so at great expense. When that is the case, there is no market mechanism to restrain rent increases.<\/p>\n

And when there is no market force restraining those increases, and no legal protection for homeowners against them, then people like Sam Zell become gazillionaires by rent-gouging the elderly.
\n<\/p>\n

Rachel Swick Mavity reports for the Cape Gazette<\/em> on a bill passed by Delaware\u2019s state senate that would require landowners to get special approval for any rent increases about the consumer price index: \u201cBill would not allow unreasonable lot-rent increases<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without such protection, Delaware state Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf says, residents \u201care held hostage in these communities, and the park owners know it. That\u2019s not free market.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s not, but the city of Oceanside, Calif., wants to pretend it is. \u201cProposition E Would Phase Out Rent Control in Oceanside\u2019s Mobile Home Parks<\/a>,\u201d reports Alison St. John for KPBS.<\/p>\n

St. John cuts to the heart of the matter:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to make clear up front that mobile homes are not really mobile, so the homeowners\u2019 security is inextricably tied to the owner of the land it sits on \u2013 the owner of the park.<\/p>\n

Linda Walshaw bought a brand new manufactured home here four years ago, after she suffered a series of strokes and had to stop working.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been priced out of stick built homes,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been priced out of apartments, and the only option that was really available to us was manufactured homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walshaw paid a premium for the new home \u2013 $120,000 at the peak of the market a few years ago. Because it was in a rent controlled park, she knew she would never be priced out. She has decorated the interior tastefully with art work and kept it in immaculate condition.<\/p>\n

But last year the Oceanside city council passed an ordinance to phase out rent control in the parks. Walshaw said her home has lost value like every other house in San Diego but, without rent control, the value has plummeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if they can raise the rent without limit, then no other buyer is going to want this house,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve invested my life savings in this house. I\u2019ve already lost a great deal of money since I\u2019ve moved in and this will take the rest. If I lose this home, I lose everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who would gain from phasing out rent control? The mobile home park owners. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

St. Johns\u2019 initial point there \u2014 \u201cmobile homes are not really mobile\u201d \u2014 is why rent control is absolutely necessary for these communities. People like Walshaw have no recourse if park owners decide to hike the rent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like an apartment building. If you\u2019re renting an apartment and the landlord decides to hike the rent 10 percent, or 50 percent, or 40,000 percent, then you can simply move out<\/em>. Tenants\u2019 ability \u2014 at least in theory \u2014 to shop around for a lower rent exerts a market control on prices, keeping landlords from arbitrarily hiking rents or charging exploitative rates.<\/p>\n

No such market control exists in mobile home parks. There, tenants invest in a lot and anchor themselves to it, unable to move away. They have no ability to shop around and no ability to constrain the landlord from whatever rent hikes he can bleed out of them.<\/p>\n

So Proposition E has nothing to do with a \u201cfree market\u201d \u2014 it has to do with granting one group of private citizens unchecked, unlimited power over another group of private citizens. That\u2019s not a market exchange. That\u2019s feudalism.<\/p>\n

Des Moines Register<\/em> reporter Lee Rood has investigated the sorts of things that can happen when private citizens (landlords) are granted this kind of unchecked power over other private citizens (tenants). Her 2010 series of special reports, \u201cTrapped,\u201d offered a dismayingly thorough tour of the many ways in which Iowa\u2019s manufactured-home tenants are exploited and preyed on. (Here\u2019s the first installment of that series: \u201cThousands of Iowans are stuck in aging mobile homes<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

That was the kind of high-profile investigative series that prompts lawmakers to introduce legislation. But two years later, Rood reports, much of that reform legislation is stalled, \u201cFailed bill means mobile home rules still shaky<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iowa\u2019s landlord-tenant statute is so lopsided, tenants can be \u2014 and are \u2014 kicked out of mobile home parks with a 60-day notice for almost any reason.<\/p>\n

Ben Bellus, an assistant attorney general who used to represent Legal Aid clients, knows of tenants who have lost their homes for refusing sex with a park manager; turning away a manager who wants inside a home after dark; and for declining to do maintenance for which the landlord was responsible.<\/p>\n

If this seems outrageous, you might want to contact your state legislator. One of the bills that sputtered to a halt this year at the Legislature was House Study Bill 600, a measure that would have required landlords to provide a legitimate reason for terminating someone\u2019s lease in a mobile home park.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Requiring \u201ca legitimate reason for terminating someone\u2019s lease\u201d? Why, that\u2019s socialism!<\/em><\/p>\n

From Florida to Oregon, Minnesota to California, residents of manufactured-home communities have been hit hard by rising lot rents as park owners have seen their own costs and vacancies rise.<\/p>\n

But unlike some other states \u2014 where cities have the authority to establish rent-control rules or commissions to protect tenants \u2014 Iowa law prohibits such options.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both of those forms of legal protection are necessary \u2014 indispensably necessary \u2014 wherever there is this situation of immobile homes resting on ground owned by a rent-collecting landlord. But they\u2019re not the best solution.<\/p>\n

The best solution, again, is for the people who own the homes to also own the land beneath them \u2014 to convert every mobile-home park into a resident-owned community.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t like rent control, and if you don\u2019t like regulation, then this ought to be your preferred solution too.<\/p>\n

It works.<\/p>\n

As Craig Welch reported last month in the Concord Monitor, it has worked dozens of times over in New Hampshire, as \u201cIn 100 parks, renters have become owners<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

People from more than 5,600 New Hampshire households, most of them low-income, have created affordable housing for themselves. Quite an accomplishment, wouldn\u2019t you say?<\/p>\n

The strategy they\u2019ve used takes courage, faith in the future and faith in themselves. It results in housing that is stable and safe, and that helps them save money and build assets. It also results in improved neighborhoods and greater civic participation. And it generates property tax dollars for the 64 communities where it is located.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re called resident-owned manufactured-housing communities, and last month a community in Derry became New Hampshire\u2019s 100th.<\/p>\n

\u2026 New Hampshire\u2019s first resident-owned community was created in Meredith in 1984. The elderly owners of a 13-home trailer park needed to sell it because they couldn\u2019t keep up with the maintenance. At the time, real estate prices near Lake Winnipesaukee were sky-high as land was snapped up for condos and vacation homes. The park\u2019s longtime residents knew exactly what would happen if it was sold.<\/p>\n

A couple of residents looked into buying the park themselves, but they didn\u2019t have the personal credit, or down payment, for a loan. So they organized the other residents into a cooperative and approached the banks as a group.<\/p>\n

The banks still weren\u2019t persuaded. Three wouldn\u2019t lend to a cooperative. Two said that even as a cooperative, the families didn\u2019t have sufficient credit. Then there was the group\u2019s lack of management experience, low incomes and a leaky septic system that needed costly repairs. Few lenders thought that a newly formed group of volunteers could manage such an enterprise without bankrupting it.<\/p>\n

But over the past 27 years, they\u2019ve proven otherwise.<\/p>\n

The Meredith group was assisted by a graduate student who needed a community development project to complete her master\u2019s degree. Her professors connected her with a brand-new organization, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund. The Community Loan Fund connected with the Sisters of Mercy, who wanted to put the money in their retirement fund to use for a good purpose. This project was the perfect fit.<\/p>\n

It would be 2\u00bd years before the next New Hampshire park converted to resident ownership, but then the idea exploded. Thirty-five parks converted in the next 10 years, and 46 in the decade after that.<\/p>\n

In 27 years, not one of these communities has failed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nearly 7 million Americans live in manufactured homes. That\u2019s nearly 7 million people facing financial insecurity and the daily anxiety of knowing that, at any point, the ground beneath their homes might be sold out from under them. We could make sure they all have the legal protections of rent control and tenant commissions to mitigate the exploitation they face as powerless tenants. Or we could help them \u2014 all of them \u2014 purchase the land beneath their homes so that they no longer are<\/em> powerless tenants.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know I\u2019ve written this same post every few months about manufactured homes (or \u201cmobile homes\u201d or \u201ctrailer parks\u201d). But it keeps happening. It\u2019s always happening. All that changes are the names of the towns, of the parks, of the councils and legislatures, and of the desperate homeowners explaining to reporters that they just don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-7759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-warfare","tag-manufactured-housing"],"yoast_head":"\nAnother post about manufactured housing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I know I've written this same post every few months about manufactured homes (or "mobile homes" or "trailer parks"). But it keeps happening. It's always\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/22\/another-post-about-manufactured-housing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Another post about manufactured housing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I know I've written this same post every few months about manufactured homes (or "mobile homes" or "trailer parks"). But it keeps happening. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Another post about manufactured housing","description":"I know I've written this same post every few months about manufactured homes (or \"mobile homes\" or \"trailer parks\"). But it keeps happening. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}