More money could be headed to help Maine mobile home residents
May 23—Maine lawmakers have given initial approval to a bill to boost mobile home park residents' chances of purchasing their parks.
Proposed by Sen. John Baldacci, D-Bangor, the bill would add $3 million to a fund designed to help residents put in a competitive offer against the increasing number of out-of-state investors trying to buy up some of the state's last affordable housing.
The House voted 78-64 in favor and the Senate approved it in a procedural move that does not require a tally. The bill still needs final votes in each chamber, then it must win approval from the appropriations committee to be included in the next budget.
The vote comes as one park prepares to submit its own offer and another hits the market.
In 2023, the Legislature passed an "opportunity to purchase" law that requires park owners to give residents at least 60 days' notice if they plan to sell, giving the community members the chance to purchase it themselves. The park owner isn't required to accept the offer, but must negotiate "in good faith."
Last year, the governor and Maine State Housing Authority created the Manufactured and Mobile Home Park Preservation and Assistance Program — a $5 million fund to help residents purchase their parks.
So far, residents in Brunswick, Bangor and Monmouth have put in successful bids to buy their parks, but more than twice as many have failed, and more parks keep hitting the market. With so many parks weighing their options, there is more need than there is funding.
Gov. Janet Mills earmarked $3 million in the budget, and Baldacci's bill would infuse another $3 million.
Next week, residents of Friendly Village in Gorham plan to submit an offer to buy their roughly 300-lot park. The owners have a multi-state, eight-park, $87.5 million offer from Wyoming investment firm Crown Communities LLC. Crown is offering $22 million for Friendly Village, specifically.
Dawn Beaulieu, one of the organizers of the park's purchase effort, wouldn't say how much the residents are planning to offer but did say it's more than the asking price.
More than 80 miles north, another investment firm is eyeing a smaller park in Winslow.
On Tuesday, MaineHousing received notice that the owners of Spruce Ridge Mobile Home Park have a $3.1 million offer to buy the 45-lot community. The prospective buyer, Homes of America, is an affiliate of Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund most known for purchasing and gutting newspapers.
According to a September report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Homes of America owns at least 138 mobile home parks in 17 states, the majority of which are in Florida and Michigan. The report says the company follows a familiar pattern: raising the rents (sometimes by up to 100%), instituting fees for services that had previously been free, and evicting residents who don't pay on time.
It's estimated that one in five of Maine's 486 licensed mobile home parks is owned by a private equity firm. Parks have, in the last few years, pushed back against these purchases and the Legislature is considering multiple bills to help.
Lawmakers are expected to soon vote on another bill that would give residents the "right of first refusal" if their park comes up for sale, and an emergency moratorium that would prohibit the sale of mobile home parks with more than 25 lots for three months, unless the sale would be to a relative or if residents of the park have decided they do not wish to purchase.
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