Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Awilda Suriel sat on the ground, her knees drawn and her head in her hands as she watched her neighbors file onto the patch of grass before her. They shifted uneasily, their arms crossed and eyes downcast. While most were silent, the few who traded muted pleasantries hushed as the homeowners of the Silver Court Trailer Park commenced their meeting.

Bringing them together was the fact that they’ll soon be driven apart.

Suriel, 43, purchased her trailer two years ago for $45,000, then sank what remained of her savings, $20,000, into making it a home — new siding, a carport, interior repairs — for her three kids.

She had saved for...

Toll Brothers, one of the largest luxury homebuilders in the country, has a contract to purchase the 27 acres of Chatham Estates for about $30 million, according to Town of Cary records. For years, many residents paid about $400 a month to live at Chatham Estates. Soon, the same land is expected to hold 427 housing units with prices that could exceed $1 million.

The displacement at Chatham Estates exposes a legal gap in North Carolina: thousands of residents own their homes, but not the land where they live.

Mobile homes make up more than 11% of the state’s housing, nearly double the national average. Yet when parks close, state law...

This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here.

When Clara Faria read her rent statement, her heart stopped. Her monthly payment would more than triple, rising from $297 per month to $995. She had four days to make the payment or be charged a $50 late fee.

She sank into the brown leather chair next to her formica-coated kitchen table, where she’d opened her mail for decades. She had heard neighbors were getting rent increases, but said she hadn’t received a notice herself. She had hoped she would be spared, but the reality was...

Since around the time Alaska became a state, a mobile home park has occupied a corner of Midtown Anchorage near the intersection of Arctic and Benson boulevards.

From the outside, South Park Estates, as the park is grandly named, is looking rough these days.

The owner of the park has announced plans to eventually raze the land and redevelop the site into townhouses. Some of the original trailers have already been demolished, and squatters have moved into others that are boarded up. Abandoned cars dot the properties, as well as piles of accumulated trash and debris.

But there’s another side of the park, in neatly tended mobile homes...

The residents of a mobile home park in Missoula brought their concerns to City Council on Monday night, seeking help in face of repeated rent hikes and what they describe as poor management by the property owner.

The issues facing North Star Court have become increasingly common in recent years as large real estate investors take ownership of mobile home parks, often followed by unchecked lease increases. The results threaten to drive out the most vulnerable park residents who often can't afford any other housing.

“We feel abandoned and neglected,” said North Star tenant member CJ Taylor. “This reflects a broader problem. We can't...

Santa Ana, CA – On Tuesday, April 21, residents of Coach Royal mobile home park demanded Kingsley Management Corporation get out of their park. Community Service Organization Orange County (CSO OC) joined them to demand the city council intervene against years of harassment, unjust evictions, home theft, and intimidation by the corporation. The abuse resulted in the suicide of resident Maria Pedraza, whose home was in the process of being taken after years of sacrificing to purchase it.

Karla Alvarado, one of the residents whose home was stolen, stated: “The city of Santa Ana has already met with 45 residents who can testify to this. 45...

Manufactured homes became known as mobile homes because there was a time when they were truly mobile, with owners moving them around the country in search of work or better places to live.

To ensure their mobility, Congress passed legislation in 1974 requiring every manufactured home to be built on a permanent chassis — a heavy-duty metal frame that could be attached to wheels.

There is now a measure to eliminate the steel chassis requirement for manufactured homes, part of a sweeping federal housing bill moving through Congress aimed at increasing homeownership and easing the shortage of low-income housing nationwide.

Housing experts...

“It's a little more time. Yeah, it's a little more time,” he said.

LePochat has lived at Evergreen for more than two decades, calling it home while living in his 1960 Airstream for 35 years. But like many others, he’s now facing rising costs as he searches for a new place to go.

“I'm going from $500 a month to $735 a month, and on Social Security, it's just a matter of time,” he said, referencing his tight finances. “You know, if the truck breaks down. It's going to stay broke down.”

Residents say the uncertainty has been building for months. The park sold in September, followed by letters in the fall that made no mention of any major...

RENO, Nev. (News 4 & Fox 11) — Crews started to demolish three buildings at the old Jones West Ford site on Kietzke Lane in Reno Thursday afternoon to make way for Nevada's first soccer-only stadium.

Seven months after announcing plans to bring a USL soccer team to the Biggest Little City, Reno Pro Soccer officials celebrated the milestone as crews took the soccer-themed wrecking ball to the aging buildings.

Reno Pro Soccer is planning to build a 6,000-seat soccer-only stadium on the site. Officials also plan a $350 million entertainment district known as 'The Boulevard Reno' on the site just south of the stadium.

The 28-acre project...

Lisa Helphinstine never thought she'd face homelessness, but then again she never imagined tech companies would be interested in buying a mobile home park in rural Kentucky.

Helphinstine is just one of 28 residents of Meadowland Village Mobile Home Park in Mason County who received notice that the property is under contract for sale to an unnamed “Fortune 500” company, which has yet to be identified, planning to build a 2,000-acre data center.

“They just up and said you have 90 days to move,” Helphinstine, 50, tells PEOPLE. “I have no idea what I'm going to do. I bought the mobile home so I could have somewhere to live. Now, I'm going to...

Residents of a Cary mobile home park were in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday demanding support and compensation from a potential developer as they're being forced to leave their homes.

"Where we live now, it doesn’t look like much to many people, but for us it’s home," said Abigael Dawah. Some of the144 families who live at Chatham Estates pay $400 a month to rent their lots.

They got a letter in January from the current owner, who is selling the land, citing his age and health.

The potential new owner is expected to redevelop the area with more than 300 multi-family units and nearly 100 townhouses.

"We’re asking the Town of Cary for a...

A New Jersey-based company that owns mobile home parks and prefabricated residential communities in a dozen states will be Westmoreland County’s largest taxpayer in 2026.

New totals from the county’s tax assessment office reveal United Mobile Homes Properties Inc. has taken the top spot among local taxpayers, replacing the owners of Westmoreland Mall in Hempfield who for decades topped the list of property owners with the most valued assets.

According to the most recent figures, the company’s holdings in the county are assessed at more than $12.4 million, which translates to a market value of more than $140 million.

The company owns more...

ALBANY, NY — Assembly Member Paula Elaine Kay announced that she has signed on and is advocating for legislation that requires manufactured home park owners to provide a written justification for any rent increase exceeding three percent of the current rent. Additionally, property owners must make supporting documentation available to residents upon request, ensuring that increases are clearly explained and tied to legitimate costs. This bill passed the Senate this year and is currently in the Assembly Standing Committee on Housing.

“I’m a proud co-sponsor of bill A340A, a measure aimed at strengthening protections for residents of...

Wendy and Phil Durocher took their seats in a dim conference room in the annals of the Pinellas County courthouse and got ready to plead their case. They came armed with a binder of receipts, itemized spreadsheets and photographs of their storm-damaged mobile home, meticulously highlighted and annotated.

After months of agonizing, a county magistrate would soon decide whether the Durochers would be allowed to keep their Palm Harbor home, deemed “substantially damaged” from flooding during Hurricane Helene.

Unless the Durochers could prove the county’s building department had miscalculated, their home would have to be torn down or...

When: Warwick Township Board of Supervisors meeting, April 15.

What happened: Warwick Township supervisors gave unanimous approval to a conditional use application from United Zion Retirement Community to build a medical residential campus adjacent to the existing 157-unit retirement community. The township attached 15 conditions.

Details: United Zion is proposing to construct 78 independent living duplex and townhouse units, with an associated community building and a maintenance building on property it owns at 70 Sherry Drive, Lititz. That land is located at Plateau Village, a mobile home community of 70 mostly older residents. Those...

One of Pacifica's most unassuming ocean neighbors just sold for a decidedly not-so-modest price. Saunders Property Company has snapped up Viewpointe at Seaside, a 93-unit manufactured-housing community on the city's coast, for $39.5 million. The ocean-adjacent property at 1300 Palmetto Avenue features a mix of one- and two-bedroom homes on leased pads. The deal shifts the park from former owner The Carlyle Group to an institutional investor that has been quietly racking up mobile-home acquisitions across California, a type of transaction that local watchers say can have outsized impacts on lot rents and long-term affordability in the Bay...

On what was the coldest day of April so far, residents of two Missoula-area mobile home parks sat down for lease negotiations with their Texas-based landlord — a first in Montana history, according to the Missoula Tenants Union.

Representatives from Oak Wood Ventures visited Missoula last week to meet with residents of Travois Village in Missoula and Harvey’s mobile home park in Bonner, which the company bought in 2023. After rent increases and other issues, residents of the parks formed two tenants unions and demanded Oak Wood meet with them to negotiate a new lease. 

On Thursday, that meeting actually happened — a fact that tenant...

The Camarillo City Council will consider adopting the city’s first permanent rent stabilization ordinance for the city's three mobile home parks April 22.

The proposed ordinance aims to maintain affordable housing for residents while allowing owners to earn a reasonable profit.

If adopted, the regulations would prevent the gap between rent at mobile home parks in the city and rent at other Ventura County mobile home parks from growing wider.

The council voted 3-2 last month to reject a previous version of the ordinance to allow for further revision.

“I think the draft ordinance as it’s currently presented goes overboard in its protection...

Stephania Melton has been fighting to keep a roof over her head ever since she and her four children moved into their three-bedroom trailer in the Hunter Ridge Mobile Home Park more than two years ago.

The 44-year-old cook and kitchen supervisor from Alabama said the trouble began around March of 2024 after payments for several bills were deducted from her bank account simultaneously, leaving her $2 short on her $1,300 monthly rent.

The Hunter Ridge online payment portal locked her out. 

“I wasn’t able to pay my rent,” Melton told Capital B Atlanta while standing outside her home near Jonesboro. “It’s been two years and they still say,...

For decades, Chatham Estates Mobile Home Park has been a quiet pocket of affordability for hundreds of families, seniors and immigrants in Cary.

But fears of displacement have loomed over the 27-acre mobile-home community, and now with a planned sale they are a reality.

According to Town of Cary records, Pennsylvania-based luxury builder Toll Brothers is under contract to buy the land at 607 Cedar St. for the Maple Avenue redevelopment project. The property, owned by Curtis Westbrook Sr. for over 40 years, is expected to sell for about $30 million, according to Triangle Business Journal, which first reported the news.

Toll Brothers and...

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - A fishing pole rests on the ground in Elizabeth Small’s backyard. The owner of a mobile home says it needs a few tweaks before she can cast off again.

Small instead spends her focus on yard work this day off.

“I’m so proud of this place. I really am,” she celebrated.

Inside Riverview Mobile Home Park at 2530 South Main Street, Rockford, the 37-year-old finds a slice of peace on her lot. The property is sandwiched between Illinois Route 2, a gateway into downtown, as well as the Rock River — Small’s backyard.

The Sonoma City Council will hold a study session at their April 15, 2026, meeting, to review and discuss a draft ordinance related to mobilehome park closures and conversions.

This draft ordinance reflects direction previously provided by the City Council and incorporates updates to align with recent changes in state law, including AB 2782 and SB 610. The proposed updates focus on strengthening requirements related to relocation impact reports, notice timelines, relocation assistance, and protections for residents, particularly for lower-income households and individuals with disabilities.

As part of this study session, the Council will...

In 2024, a coalition in Arizona successfully changed state law to keep mobile home park owners from restricting certain air conditioners that were considered ugly or noisy.

Now, one of those stakeholder groups is pushing new legislation to improve these communities.

The Arizona Association of Manufactured Home Owners held eight listening sessions with residents, utility companies and groups like the anti-poverty organizer Wildfire AZ to help draft bills that would not only change state law but also add more enforcement.

One bill would require more education for park managers; two others would prevent park owners from charging residents...

On March 23, Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) introduced new legislation to promote affordable housing and fight back against profiteering Wall Street investors by helping residents purchase and own their parks.[1]  Titled the Promoting Residential Ownership of (PRO) Manufactured Home Communities Act, the act addresses the urgent need to protect manufactured housing residents from greed-driven skyrocketing costs, hostile eviction, and unlivable conditions.[2]

The legislation aims to help residents build wealth and maintain long-term housing stability in the face of those rising costs.[3]  “Manufactured housing should be an opportunity for...

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many heavy hitters are on your side or how many of your ducks are in a row, those in a position of power just won’t budge. That was the case at Monday’s Garfield County Commissioner (BOCC) meeting when a group of said heavy hitters, supporting residents of the 98-lot Cavern Springs Mobile Home Park, who want to purchase the park, showed up bright and early for the public comment period. 

Last year, Aspen-Basalt and Mountain Valley mobile home park residents in the Roaring Fork Valley successfully purchased the parks for $42 million. April Long, executive director of the West Mountain Regional Housing...