Latest news with #manufacturedhousing
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Private equity is turning mobile homes into health hazards. What can governments do?
Four years ago, Valeria Steele's West Virginia mobile home park was purchased by Homes of America, a subsidiary of well-known 'vulture fund' Alden Global Capital. The private equity giant has become infamous for buying distressed newspapers, cutting staff, offloading assets and loading them with debt. 'They don't make any attempt to sell them,' Steele says. 'They don't make any attempt to repair them. And that's the norm among a lot of their properties.' Sure enough, after Homes of America's purchase, lot rents jumped and tenants reported major problems like collapsing floors. The park has rapidly been emptying, maintenance has stalled, and rent checks have been lost. According to a new report, tenants in manufactured housing parks like Steele's are also facing serious health hazards. Tenants have reported poor quality drinking water, frequent water shut offs, plumbing failures, and debris from vacant homes that were never emptied out. The new research, published by Human Impact Partners and advocacy group Manufactured Housing Action (MHAction), is based on 20 interviews with Homes of America, tenants across five states and information from public records. The private equity company owns about 144 manufactured housing communities across the United States, according to estimates by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project and Manufactured Housing Action. Homes of America did not respond to a request for comment. Researcher Will Dominie tells Next City that partnerships between tenant organizers and government are vital to reigning in abuses of power by private equity firms in housing. 'These companies are so powerful. They have so much money. They have so many lobbyists. They have so many lawyers,' Dominie says. 'It's going to take the combined power of residents organizing [and government].' Paul Terranova, an organizer with MHAction who collaborated on the report, tells Next City that tenants organizing against Homes of America have made 'very important but still partial' victories over the company. Tenants near Flint, Michigan, have seen Homes of America plead guilty to criminal charges carrying a $25,000 fine and agree to sell their park. In Elkins, West Virginia, Steele and her fellow tenants are awaiting a settlement from their class action lawsuit against the company. While tenants in manufactured housing face unique challenges, the report's policy recommendations apply to the housing crisis at large. These recommendations include strengthening housing standards and tenant protections, supporting community ownership and limiting corporate speculation. When Elena Smith signed her lease for a trailer in Lake Suzanne Mobile Home Park in Shiloh, Illinois, management told her the property had new owners and that changes would be made. Over the course of two years, she experienced conditions that lead her to two 'mental breakdowns,' she says. In a trailer with poor insulation, the air conditioning would go out in the height of summer or the heat in the dead of winter. When maintenance finally came to fix it, they found that the duct had been torn open by an animal burrowing inside. Management would shut off water in the park with no notice and give vague replies when asked when it would return. When the water did work, she still drank bottled water because the shower irritated her eczema. 'I used to think I had dandruff. I don't have dandruff,' Smith says. 'Because I moved somewhere else and my scalp is fine. It doesn't flake anymore.' In the report, researchers documented water quality violations at five Homes of America parks that included heavy metals, nitrates and fecal contaminants that could be linked to skin and gastrointestinal issues. Interview participants in four states reported sporadic water cut offs. All 20 residents interviewed bought bottled water for daily needs, spending up to $200 per month. Smith says she and her sister paid out-of-pocket for ant traps, gallons of water for cooking and flushing the toilet, a window AC unit and motel stays when the conditions got too hard to manage. Finally, Smith's sister took out a loan so they could afford to move. While she lived at Lake Suzanne, Smith says she saw trailers disappear as city inspectors condemned them. The report cites inspection records listing 20 units 'unfit for habitation.' 'I left a very dangerous situation and so to live like that … it was almost like 'why did I leave if I'm going to live like this?'' Smith says. The stress of her living situation drove Smith to contemplate suicide because it felt inescapable. 'It's degrading to live that way,' Smith says. 'It's degrading to not be able to flush your toilet every time you use it and to let your mess sit in the toilet because you have to ration out the water to flush your toilet—to only be able to flush it once a day or not at all.' Smith tells Next City that tenants in her old mobile home park still live the way she used to and don't speak up because they're afraid to lose their homes. While she no longer lives at Lake Suzanne, Smith stays connected to Terranova to help with the tenants' fight and use her experience to bring attention to the situation. Terranova and Dominie say manufactured housing doesn't have the same regulations as traditional rentals and tends to get less attention. These parks are often in rural places with few protections and house populations that are vulnerable to exploitation, such as low-income, elderly, disabled and immigrant tenants. But there are a few states that have more robust legislation for how to regulate manufactured housing. Researchers frequently cited Colorado regulations—a state with no Homes of America parks—as policies that could be adopted in other jurisdictions or on a national level. Colorado has a right to counsel for mobile home residents, protection from retaliation, tasks its state health department with testing and enforcing water quality standards at mobile home parks, and registers parks in a database. A registry of mobile home parks may seem inconsequential, but researchers note that 'enforcement depends on accurate ownership data, which can be difficult with corporations that often hide behind multiple shell LLC companies.' After her park changed hands, Steele had to dig into public records and connect the dots between different Alden Global Capital affiliates to find out who owned it. Steele has also seen the importance of tenant protections from retaliation. After taking part in a class action lawsuit and informing her neighbors about unlawful eviction, Steele was sued by Homes of America and countersued for retaliation. Colorado also has a way researchers say governments can limit corporate speculation on manufactured housing communities. Manufactured homes can be attractive investments to speculators who want to close them and repurpose the land for other uses—and local governments can prevent this. Boulder, Colorado, uses preservation zoning to make it harder to reclassify and convert park land to different uses. As more and more of the trailers around her become vacant, Steele thinks Homes of America plans to empty out her park and redevelop the land. If the area becomes popular for different kinds of housing or vacation rentals, 'they'd be on the forefront,' she says. The report's policy recommendations only highlight protections that exist in states where Homes of America does not operate and which can serve as posts for regulating manufactured housing. 'The most predatory companies tend to choose to operate in the states that have the least protections,' Terranova says. This story was produced by Next City, a nonprofit newsroom covering solutions for equitable cities, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Washington Post
27-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Champion Homes: Fiscal Q4 Earnings Snapshot
TROY, Mich. — TROY, Mich. — Champion Homes, Inc. (SKY) on Tuesday reported profit of $36.3 million in its fiscal fourth quarter. On a per-share basis, the Troy, Michigan-based company said it had profit of 63 cents. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to 65 cents per share. The manufactured and modular housing maker posted revenue of $593.9 million in the period.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Report details life in mobile home communities owned by outside entities
princeton – Mobile home communities, also known as trailer parks, are facts of life around West Virginia and throughout the nation, but a report compiled by two nonprofit organizations with help from Mercer County residents argues that out-of-state owners are making these parks less than desirable places to live. In February 2023, Mountain State Justice, a statewide nonprofit legal services and advocacy organization, announced they filed a lawsuit in Mercer County Circuit Court on behalf of the residents in five manufactured housing communities against an out-of-state private equity firm and its affiliates. The lawsuit's defendants, Smith Management LLC and Homes of America LLC, had purchased five manufactured home communities in Mercer County, according to court documents. The communities include Gardner Estates, Elk View, Country Roads, Delaney and Shadow Wood. The firm has purchased several manufactured housing communities in Mercer County and surrounding areas, in many cases more than doubling the lot rent rates residents were paying. The lawsuit cited problems including faulty sewer systems, standing water and insect problems. Two nonprofit organizations, Human Impact Partners and Manufactured Housing Action, released a report May 6 titled 'Home Sick: Uncovering the health harms of Homes of America's manufactured housing communities.' Valeria Steele, a resident organizer at Elk View Estates and the West Virginia Rights Project, worked on the 66-page report along with Will Dominie, Housing Justice Program Director, Human Impact Partners and Paul Terranova, Midwest Community Organizer, Manufactured Housing Action. According to the report, Homes of America and West Virginia residents came to a settlement for the lawsuit in 2024, with court approval expected in 2025. As part of the settlement, Homes of America denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to comply with all applicable West Virginia laws and regulations, including habitability laws. Homes of America also agreed to: • Provide lease agreements to those residents who remained in the lawsuit with a comparable lease as provided to others, including the opportunity for lower rent and credit for overcharges. • Improve processes for rent payment, including refunds for inadvertent late fees. • Allow (and not further hinder) residents' efforts to organize with one another or seek outside assistance. In a separate settlement, Homes of America agreed to withdraw a lawsuit against resident and community organizer Valeria Steele for organizing and educating residents about rental lease agreements, according to the report. Steele said a settlement was reached on Dec. 13, 2024 and the hope is that the agreement will go before the circuit court within three weeks for approval. 'My biggest takeaway is that it took a lot of interaction amongst the communities to be resilient to last through this. It proves that if you organize, it does make a difference,' Steele said. 'If we hadn't shared information about what was going on, if people hadn't gotten together, it (the lawsuit) wouldn't have gotten off. … Don't be afraid to act. It's your right.' Steele later said that units at her park have been left empty. Some properties which were empty when the problems started in October 2022 have never been rented. 'The sad thing is it's kind of a hollow victory because the properties are ruined,' she said. 'The properties are almost empty. Elk View has only about nine now.' Residents of other Mercer County parks purchased by Homes of America also said conditions have deteriorated. 'They [Homes of America] have made it so miserable for us. We used to love to come home. This was our home. We thought we could live here until we died and our life is so miserable, so miserable. This place has ruined our life, our health, and our future,' Barry Yost, a Shadow Wood Mobile Home Park resident, said in the report. Homes of America LLC now owns at least 144 manufactured home communities, most of which are in Florida, Michigan and Illinois, according to the report. Homes of America LLC did not reply to a Bluefield Daily Telegraph request for comment. Dominie said that Human Impact Partners is a national nonprofit organization which works to transform the public health fild and build power with grassroots social justice movements. Human Impact Partners has a longterm partnership with Manufacturing Housing Action, recently worked on the issue of corporate landlords and health. 'And I think in that research we really sought to understand and show the ways in which the corporate investors model prioritizes profit over human needs and the needs of housing and leads to a number of issues like neglect, upkeep, evictions, rent hikes, tax evasion, dodging accountability and influencing policy and kind of rigging the rules,' Dominie said. 'We had already done that research with them and they started telling us about this campaign with the residents of Homes of America-owned manufactured housing communities.' While these residence are often called mobile homes, their owners cannot easily leave a community when the rent for a home lot increases, Dominie said. 'It does leave people captive to more exploitive practices,' he said. Paul Terranova, Midwest Community Organizer, Manufactured Housing Action, said his nonprofit organization supports residents in those communities work for better living conditions. About two years ago, Manufactured Housing Action and Human Impact Partners started getting phone calls and emails from people whose parks had been purchased by buyers they could not identify. The only hint was a New Jersey mailing address at the end of residents' leases. 'But we started seeing the same address from a bunch of different parks where people were having problems,' Terranova said. Terranova said he has visited between 30 to 35 manufactured housing parks in Michigan and Illinois that have had the same problems. 'What I hear residents talk about is that when things go wrong either nothing is done or, you know, something less than the absolute minimum is done,' he said. 'I think people tend to believe that their communities are allowed to deteriorate.' Terranova said it's hoped that the report will highlight the situations residents locally and across the country face when their parks are bought out by outside companies. 'One of the main things is raising awareness among local officials who may not realize that this local mobile home park is part of a much bigger problem,' he said. 'They're under attack by a much bigger set of forces.' Local governments and local building inspectors do have authority to hold companies accountable for building codes, Terranova said. 'I think the other thing is also educating state legislators so they realize that the seniors and veterans and disabled folks in their communities are themselves being attacked by the Wall Street predators,' he said. 'This cuts across ideology and party lines. When you go into the manufactured housing communities whether the area they are in is deep red, deep blue, deep purple, people are being hurt from every political persuasion and walk of life.' In the report, the organizations and park residents make several recommendations for improving conditions. These recommendations include: • Strengthen housing standards to keep residents safe in their homes: Pass and enforce strong housing standards like licensing requirements, regular inspections, and accountability mechanisms to ensure homes are safe and habitable. • Protect residents from exploitation: Pass rent regulations and good-cause eviction policies, and prohibit retaliation and unfair or discriminatory practices. • Promote and resource community-friendly ownership: Provide funding and pass policies that enable residents to transition from corporate to community-friendly models of ownership. • Address the root cause by limiting corporate speculation: Enact protective zoning regulations, impose portfolio caps, divest resources, and increase taxes on speculative investments to deter corporate profiteering. 'Home Sick: Uncovering the health harms of Homes of America's manufactured housing communities' can be read by going to on the internet. Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@
