Manufactured homes are sometimes the last option for affordable housing. As private investors buy up parks, some states aim to protect residents from rapid rent increases.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Well, here’s a bipartisan concern in America. A Pew survey last year found that almost 70% – 7 out of 10 – 70% of Americans said they were very concerned about the cost of housing. For some people, the solution is a manufactured home, which is a fancy phrase for a mobile home. You own the home, and you rent the underlying land. Private investors are increasingly buying up manufactured home parks and jacking up rents for people who can’t easily move. Some states have found ways to empower homeowners in this situation, but others cannot agree on the right approach. And that includes Montana, where affordable housing is hard to come by. Here is Montana Public Radio’s Shaylee Ragar.
SHAYLEE RAGAR, BYLINE: These three women didn’t know each other before a shared predicament brought them together.
VIVIAN RAMBO: What was the nickname they gave us when we went to – was it the first or second?
CINDY NEWMAN: This…
RAMBO: The Three Little Ladies from Great Falls or…
NEWMAN: Yeah. Right.
RAMBO: …The Three Little Nice Ladies or…
NEWMAN: Yeah.
RAMBO: …Something.
RAGAR: Vivian Rambo is sitting around a kitchen table, sipping coffee and talking to Cindy Newman and Jan Bailey. They’re reminiscing on their trips to the Montana Legislature last winter. As manufactured homeowners living on rented lots, they say they fear new landlords and scant legal protection will upend their lives. Newman has been organizing advocacy efforts for years now.
NEWMAN: Really, it’s, do we want to keep our home or not? That’s the determining factor.
RAGAR: She says that reality set in when housing prices soared across the country in 2020. Manufactured homes are often considered affordable housing, but that’s not always the case anymore. The company that owns the park Newman lives in increased lot rents for new tenants from $288 per month to $825 after buying the land, and made water, sewer and trash pickup separate charges. Some parks charge a pet fee, even for cats that don’t venture outside.
NEWMAN: She wants her breakfast. I’ve got to get her breakfast for her.
RAGAR: Like Newman’s cats, Cleopatra and Daisy, who are at this point tuckered out by the conversation.
NEWMAN: These guys are going to take a nap.
Come on.
RAGAR: Many manufactured homeowners have fixed or low incomes. Bailey retired and moved to a mobile home after her husband died in 2017. She says rent hikes are accompanied by poor land management.
JAN BAILEY: There isn’t anything people can really do individually, I think, and just because this business model is so widespread.
RAGAR: Amy Hall is an attorney who’s represented tenants for two decades. She says investors can be detached from the communities they buy.
AMY HALL: They’re not going to church with the residents who live in their park, like used to be pretty common, or, you know, you’d see them at the grocery store. And that’s a whole different dynamic. It’s a lot easier for a park owner to deny services or not to be as responsive.
RAGAR: Hall says Montana law favors landowners. That’s rooted in the Mountain West culture, she says.
HALL: It’s almost like a gut instinct that you don’t mess with somebody’s land.
RAGAR: Other states are trying to right that power imbalance. Oregon and Washington have rent control for manufactured home parks. Florida enacted a bill of rights decades ago and continues to update it. This year, Maine has a new law to give manufactured homeowners the right of first refusal if their park goes up for sale, and another to assess a fee on out-of-state investors with the goal of helping residents buy their own parks.
LIZA FLEMING-IVES: Maine lawmakers have taken important steps recently to support resident ownership.
RAGAR: Liza Fleming-Ives is executive director of the Genesis Community Loan Fund in Maine, a nonprofit housing lender. She testified before lawmakers in March that Maine has made strides in protecting mobile home parks.
FLEMING-IVES: But additional action is needed to address the unfortunate continued pattern of sales to corporate investors.
RAGAR: In Montana, there’s a bipartisan effort to give mobile homeowners more rights, but it’s rolled out in fits and starts. Several attempts at passing legislation have failed over the past three state legislative sessions. One bill made it all the way to Republican Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk in 2023. But he vetoed it, saying the state cannot jeopardize landowners’ rights. Chuck Denowh is a lobbyist representing Utah-based Haven Park Communities, a company that now owns a few parks in Montana. He spoke against a proposal this year he said would hurt both landlords and tenants.
CHUCK DENOWH: And I can tell you that when the cost of doing business increases, prices increase. In this case, that means rent increases.
RAGAR: That bill also failed. For the three women living in Great Falls, the next opportunity for legislative change won’t come until 2027. But they plan to continue to make their case, despite the lack of progress.
For NPR News, I’m Shaylee Ragar in Helena.
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