Mobile Home Park News Briefing

MANCHESTER -- John MacIver, 73, and many of his neighbors are worried they will not be able to keep up with rising rents in their manufactured home community.

In August, landlord MHC Pine Ridge at Crestwood II LLC sued New Jersey Attorney Matthew Platkin and Manchester Township over a new state law that caps annual rental increases in manufactured home communities like this one.

For MacIver and many of his neighbors in this age-restricted community in the Whiting section of Manchester, rising rents are quickly outpacing their retirement incomes.

"We’re happy about the (rental) cap… Most people move into these places because they’re on a...

The Windsor Town Council on Wednesday will consider adopting an urgency ordinance to pause the closure or conversion of mobile home parks in the wake of one park owner’s intention to close Evergreen Mobile Estates.

Nick Ubaldi, owner of Evergreen Mobile Estates, said when Windsor updated its rent control regulations a few years ago, the move pushed the business to operate at a loss.

“I am prepared to vigorously defend the legal rights of Evergreen Mobile Home Park. I have dedicated substantial resources to litigating similar matters throughout Sonoma County,” Ubaldi wrote in an email to the Town Council on Monday.

Evergreen is managed by...

Mary Sue Callaghan’s one-story home is on a small, quiet street in a manufactured home community just outside Mt. Pleasant, in Westmoreland County.

There are tidy shrubs and flowers along the front of the house.

An American flag hangs from the small porch.

Callaghan has lived here since 2006, when she and her husband moved in. They needed a home that was all on one level and wheelchair accessible because her husband — who has since passed away — had M-S. They purchased a manufactured home, also sometimes called a mobile home.

Callaghan, 67, loves her community. She and her sister, who now lives with her, often cook for other neighbors,...

The West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition has been making the tour of local governments who contributed toward the Aspen Basalt and Mountain Valley Mobile Home Parks purchase to present them with details surrounding the communities’ deed restriction and their financial contribution. 

April Long, executive director of WMRHC, made a recent appearance in front of the Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners on Thursday to fill them in and let the commissioners know what exactly their $3.25 million contribution was buying. 

“The deed restriction is an affordable housing restrictive covenant,” Long explained. “It runs with the property...

Priced out of traditional homes during an affordability crisis, many in Wisconsin have found another way to pursue an ownership dream.

Experts estimate that more than 100,000 Wisconsin residents live in manufactured homes, the more accurate name for what many call mobile homes or trailers — structures that make up the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. Many live in parks where they own their homes but rent the land beneath them. 

But Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for residents at a time when private equity firms are buying up parks to maximize profits, a Wisconsin Watch/WPR...

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. - Residents at two City of Bell-owned mobile home parks are afraid. Since 2020, they’ve been hearing that the Bell Mobile Home Park and Florence Village are being put up for sale. Now, city officials are telling them that appraisals will be done on their homes as the city prepares a relocation impact report to assess possible relocation costs for residents in more than 200 mobile homes.

Guillermo Gonzalez has lived here for more than 20 years and can’t imagine where he could afford to move on his retiree income. Despite assurances from city officials that they are going to help the residents in every way they...

NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. —

As home prices on the Gulf Coast continue to rise, Florida families are increasingly turning to manufactured homes as a more affordable housing option.

Larina Kramer, who moved into a manufactured home a year ago, said, "The other homes we looked at were out of league." She explained that her home cost $150,000, which she described as "nothing."

Communities like Lake Arrowhead along U.S. Route 41 in North Fort Myers are popular among retirees, but they are also attracting younger families. Arlene Fenn said, "I find that our park is turning into younger people. People that are still working." The community is for...

During Monday's Fortuna City Council meeting the Save Our Seniors movement got one step closer to their goal of a stabilized rent ordinance for mobile home parks in Fortuna. 

In a vote of 3-1 council members voted to draft a temporary ordinance banning rent increases in mobile home parks in order to give city staff more time to develop a permanent ordinance. 

Today I spoke with Save our Seniors advisor Hillary Mosher to find out more.

“I felt really positive when that meeting was over to begin with, It seemed as if the council was discussing among themselves that they wanted to do an MOU, a memo of understanding so they could avoid any...

The Massachusetts attorney general is suing the owner of a manufactured housing community in Taunton for “unfair and retaliatory rent increases.”

Willow Terrace Mobile Home Park, at 1 Willow Terrace, is a 74-unit all-ages community owned by BoaVida Communities, which owns 250 manufactured housing sites across the country, according to a Sept. 9 statement from the Attorney General’s Office about the lawsuit.

“As our residents living in manufactured housing communities continue to grapple with rising costs, the last thing they need is community owners violating their rights and our state laws by raising rents as a form of retaliation,”...

SANFORD, Maine — The city is pumping the brakes on rent increases for residents at local mobile home parks for 90 days.

In a vote that sparked applause by those in attendance, the Sanford City Council enacted the temporary moratorium on rate hikes by a vote of 6-1 on Sept. 16. City Councilor Jonathan Martell was the lone dissenter.

The temporary nature of the moratorium is justified by two pieces of recently passed legislation, LD 1723 and LD 1765, at the state level, City Manager Steven Buck said. Combined, both pieces of legislation create affordability and stability for those who rent homes and live in manufactured housing communities...

Rent prices for lots in manufactured or mobile home parks are on the rise, according to census data. Some home owners say the increases are pricing them out of the homes they own.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Some mobile and manufactured homeowners say higher lot rents are pricing them out of the homes they own. That's a particular problem in Florida, with one of the largest manufactured housing markets in the country. From member station WUSF in Tampa, Gabriella Paul reports.

GABRIELLA PAUL, BYLINE: A lot of people buy manufactured homes for the same reasons - it's a way to live affordably with neighbors your age and a park that maintains public...

TOLEDO, Ohio — Four months after Toledo declared Riverside Mobile Homes a public nuisance, some residents remain in the park despite orders to leave.

In May, tenants were given 30 days to vacate the property along Anthony Wayne Trail. The city has since authorized $200,000 for demolition, with the cost billed to property owner Ernesto Garcia. Crews have begun clearing debris from the site, but demolition is on hold until the last tenants leave.

“We have very few people who are still there,” Toledo City Council member Nick Komives said. “We’ve been actively working with United Way, with the Homelessness Board, other folks to rehouse...

PASCO COUNTY, Fla., – Residents of a 55+ manufactured home community are taking the property owner to court after a significant lot rent increase. According to the lawsuit, some residents’ lot rent went up 126% in just one year.

Gail Berghold, 79, moved to The Highlands at Scotland Yards in Dade City in 2017. Berghold told News 6 she was paying more than $600 a month in lot rent, but in January, her lot rent jumped to $1,300.

“I’m lucky if I have enough money for groceries from one paycheck to the other,” said Berghold.

News 6 has been covering the lot rent increases at manufactured home communities across Florida. In many of these...

The Martu community has invested in Chinese-made modular housing to address unsafe living conditions.

As first reported by the ABC, the Martu community of Punmu in Western Australia’s Western Desert has taken matters into its own hands after decades of inadequate housing and stalled government action.

For more than 50 years, residents have waited for new homes to replace overcrowded and deteriorating stock built in the 1980s. Many dwellings are now considered uninhabitable, with mould, warped floors, and constant plumbing failures leaving families in unsafe conditions. Martu elder Raylene Robinson described some nights as so unbearable...

Busloads of Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park residents in white T-shirts packed a rare six-judge hearing on Aug. 28, as Miami-Dade County courts pressed pause on immediate evictions, allowing more than 200 Sweetwater, Florida, families to stay in their homes—for now. 

Judges questioned two key points in the long saga of the decades-old mobile home park that is being redeveloped for “affordable” housing: whether the park’s owner properly served change-of-use notices and whether the residents’ homeowners’ association (HOA) is valid.

The case centered on a motion for summary judgment filed by park owner Consolidated Real Estate Investments...

FLINT TWP., MI -- The township has rezoned property where a condemned mobile home park was located, potentially opening up the land for future construction of single-family homes.

The township Board of Trustees completed a second reading of the zoning change this week, and officials said the new designation will take effect after publication of a legal notice about the former Myrtle Grove Mobile Home Park off West Dayton Street.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The much-troubled Superior Mobile Home Park off State Road in Oildale, which has been the scene of several homicides, arson fires and shootings in the past couple months, was being torn down by a mysterious work crew and their bulldozers Friday afternoon.

The dilapidated trailers on one side of the park were completely removed. Dust blew into the air as work crews cleaned out the debris.

A sign in the front of the park threatened in bright orange writing: “Out or Find out.”

William Clark, a resident of seven months at the park, said his power was turned off today. Clark said he needs a breathing machine after...

Bruce Gordon, 81, and fellow residents at Marsh Brook Estates are hoping the city will step in to help prevent large rent increases. Sanford city leaders are expected to vote next week on a temporary moratorium on rent increases in manufactured and mobile home parks.

SANFORD — Bruce Gordon moved into Marsh Brook Estates hoping it would be somewhere he could enjoy retirement. And while the 81-year-old did retire briefly in 2022, he’s now a school bus driver.

Residents of Friendly Village Mobile Home Park in Gorham say they're abandoning their efforts to purchase their community for now, after their cooperative submitted three different offers and all were rejected.

The park's residents were the face of a legislative effort in Augusta this year to change Maine law and tighten protections for mobile home residents around the state.

Earlier this year, Friendly Village residents received notice that the park was being sold to Wyoming-based investor Crown Communities, LLC, as part of a $87.5 million portfolio sale that included seven other parks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York.

In May,...

There hasn’t been a new mobile home park built in Anchorage in more than three decades, a recent report found, and most of the existing mobile home stock is deteriorating or outright decrepit.

The city has about three dozen such mobile home parks, formally designated “Mobile Home Communities” in municipal code, and accounting for approximately 4,600 housing units.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration is preparing two separate ordinances that aim to slow the disappearance of one of the city’s biggest reservoirs of low-income housing.

One huge reason new mobile home parks aren’t being built is expense. Mobile homes exploded in...

Like most high desert towns, Madras, Oregon, is no stranger to extreme temperatures.

Located about 2,250 feet above sea level in a dry valley surrounded by central Oregon’s Cascade Range, summers in Madras can reach triple-digits, and winters below freezing.

Homes outfitted for both hot and cold days are necessary in this rural community – but never guaranteed. That’s because within Madras city limits, there are eight mobile home parks with 276 housing spaces total, according to Oregon’s manufactured dwelling park directory.

Many of these manufactured homes are outdated and lack the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC)...

The city, which owns and operates the mobile home park, increased monthly rental rates by $25 for the past six years.

They’re looking to do the same this time around and have it be $325 per month.

Current residents pay $300 per month for rent regardless of trailer size.

If commissioners sign off on the increase, tenants will get a 90-day notice of the change, so it can take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

The rent bump, according to city officials, will go right back to the community.

“This would mean lot maintenance, stormwater, water, sewage, everything that you know this mobile home park essentially has to keep up with. That $25 rent increase...

Devo Brown began renting land at Camarillo Mobile Estates, a mobile home park for residents 55 and older, about five years ago after he lost his Malibu home in the Woolsey fire.

Although his rent has increased 20% during his time at the park, he considers himself one of the lucky homeowners. Since 2020, he said, rents for residents newly moved in have risen from $1,250 to $2,050 per month—a nearly 65% increase.

This year, the rent increases have already prompted at least three of Brown’s neighbors to move out. Two of them abandoned their homes because they could not find any buyers who were willing to pay the rent and one of the two now...

Residents of the Willow Bend and Willow Hill mobile home parks in Oak Creek are scrambling this week, organizing efforts to attempt to purchase the two parks after being notified the current owner has plans to sell.

“We are doing a lot of door knocking,” said Noreen Moore, who owns a mobile home in the Willow Bend neighborhood. “I think knocking on the door, and talking to someone individually might be more successful because explaining what a (resident-owned community) does — and doesn’t do — is the big thing.”

Moore is part of a group of owners that includes her Oak Creek neighbors Frinda Galey, Shawna Warbington and Joe Buettgen. The...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Pinellas County declared a majority of a mobile home community significantly damaged and informed residents that they need to raise them or tear them down.

This vulnerable community is in fear of losing their homes.

The Gateway Mobile Home Park is off Gandy Boulevard and 4th Street North, in St. Petersburg.

It’s a 55-and-up community. Many live on a fixed income and the stress is affecting their health. Now, Pinellas County said its focus is on compliance.

After a 40-year career at Cornell University, Bonnie Sisco has been living out the retirement she had dreamed of at the Gateway for the past 15 years.

“I...