States Look to Rein in Rising Costs for Mobile-Home Owners

Marge Wisniewski moved into Northville Crossing, a large manufactured housing park outside Detroit, a little over a decade ago. A former health-care administrator, now retired, Wisniewski says she was tired of renting and wanted to try something new. She loved the home, a double-wide mobile trailer, and the community, which has a big swimming pool, a gym and a banquet room for residents. And it was affordable: She could build equity in the trailer, and the lot rent was just $425 a month.

A few years after she bought her trailer, Wisniewski says, the park’s corporate owners started steadily increasing the rent even as conditions and services started to worsen. Standing water built up near the house because the storm drains weren’t maintained and the land wasn’t graded properly, she says. The roads were full of potholes. The space behind her backyard would overflow with trash and debris every time someone in the park was evicted and had their trailer gutted. It took her more than a year to get the owners to fence off the maintenance area.

“It didn’t start out bad, but it declined rapidly over the years,” Wisniewski says.

By the time she moved out in 2023, Wisniewski was paying more than $700 a month to rent her lot. And she’d joined up with Manufactured Housing Action, a nationwide advocacy group that’s been pushing to raise awareness of rising costs at mobile-home parks, which are increasingly owned by corporate investors. Last year, the Michigan Legislature came close to passing a series of bills backed by mobile-home owners, which would have capped rent increases, limited fees and other charges, given the state more oversight of drinking water issues and called for a public database of mobile-park owners. Wisniewski says Manufactured Housing Action met with more than 100 legislators about the issue. The bills, backed mostly by Democrats, ultimately didn’t pass, even with a Democratic trifecta in state government. Republicans regained control of the state House this year.

“We were all so disappointed,” Wisniewski says. “We’re taking a different approach now. I don’t think we’re going to get very far with the Legislature at all.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers in at least half a dozen other states are backing a variety of policies aimed at reining in costs and addressing other issues at mobile-home parks, which provide some of the most affordable housing in the country. The policy proposals include caps on annual rent increases, increased accountability for park owners, and providing park residents an opportunity to purchase properties when they go up for sale. Bills aimed at updating regulations for manufactured housing have been introduced this year in Maine, Vermont, North Carolina, Illinois, New Mexico, Montana and Washington.

The bills’ sponsors came to the issue in a variety of ways. For Rebecca White, a state senator in Vermont and a cashier at the Upper Valley Food Co-op in White River Junction, it was an interaction with a constituent that convinced her. The constituent told her a story much like Wisniewski’s: Her rent was being raised the maximum amount every year even though services and infrastructure conditions were degrading. White introduced a bill to limit the annual allowable increase. The bill hasn’t been incorporated into any legislation that’s moving forward this year, but it drew some co-sponsors, and White says she’s hopeful it will pass in some form next year.

“Mobile homes are the housing that supports our lowest-income and most vulnerable populations in Vermont, and lot rent does not need to be raised every single year on this group of people,” White says. “If they’re not seeing the services of the park improving, it doesn’t make sense.”

Tim Nangle, a state senator in Maine, came at the issue from the other angle. His family owned a mobile park in Massachusetts for decades, and he says his brother, whose name was on the incorporation documents, fielded repeated calls from corporate investors over the years. Sometimes they’d even call his daughter. Eventually the family decided it was time to sell, and they got a good offer from an investment group. But Massachusetts law required them to give the park’s residents an opportunity to buy the property first.

“They were able to organize and they purchased the park, which to me is a win-win,” Nangle says.

Nangle’s bill would give mobile park residents in Maine the right of first refusal when their parks are being sold. It would give them 90 days to organize and present an offer. Another bill introduced in Maine this year would give tax breaks to corporate owners who sell their mobile parks back to cooperative groups. Another bill filed in Washington would provide rental assistance for mobile-home park residents. Two North Carolina state senators filed a comprehensive “Mobile Home Park Act” this week.

Laura Murphy, an Illinois state senator, re-introduced a bill in February that would create an ombudsperson role for mobile parks, meant to help residents get timely responses to complaints. It’s similar to an existing state ombudsperson role for condo associations. It isn’t going to pass this year, Murphy says: “This isn’t our best budget year.”

Rent caps and right of first refusal are the main policy priorities for Manufactured Housing Action, says Patrick McHugh, a Florida-based organizer with the group. But residents of parks owned by corporate investors are in a vulnerable position no matter what the policies are, he says. New York imposed a lot rent cap as part of a broader rent stabilization bill in 2019. In the years since, McHugh says, owners have routinely raised rents by the maximum allowable amount. “There’s always something else you have to pass,” he says.

Mobile park residents in New Mexico have reported having their lot rents increased two or three times a year in recent years as more properties have been bought by investors, says Democrat Marian Matthews, a New Mexico state representative. They’ve also had to endure lots of problems with maintenance and utility issues without having a venue to get their complaints resolved quickly, she says.

This year, Matthews sponsored a bill establishing a work group to create a regulatory framework for mobile parks. She hoped it would lead to some new rules around rent stabilization and assistance for residents when owners decide to redevelop their properties. The bill didn’t pass. Matthews says she’s been surprised by “the disregard, the hostility, and the low opinion that some people have of those who live in mobile-home parks.” She considers them one of the best options for affordable housing in the state, and a critical resource for retirees and seniors. As her office has fielded more complaints from park residents in the last few years, she’s gotten to know some people at one of the parks in her district, and has come to feel strongly that it’s worth protecting.

“It’s a beautiful place and people get along and they’re enjoying the last days of their life,” Matthews says. “What’s wrong with that?”