As America faces a crisis in affordable housing, there is yet another way the rich are getting richer at the expense of those most vulnerable. Hedge funds are buying up mobile home parks and jacking up lot rents, forcing people to abandon homes they have owned and lived in for years.
Until now, mobile homes were seen as part of the answer for affordable housing. Despite the stigma, mobile homes provide a path to home ownership for people who would not otherwise have such an opportunity. Most people who live in mobile homes are working people for whom buying a traditional home is simply out of reach. But mobile home owners do not own the land their homes sit on, making them vulnerable to price gouging.
Despite the name “mobile,” they are extremely difficult and expensive to move. Costing as much as $10,000, it is far outside that savings of most mobile home owners, who have a medium yearly income of about $34,000. If greedy or unscrupulous businesses buy up these properties and then begin jacking up the lot rent, homeowners are faced with the prospect of attempting to live in a home that is no longer affordable for them, or abandoning their home. Worse yet, hedge funds buy up mobile home parks, close them down, and have the land rezoned for development.
It’s not as if there aren’t potential legal solutions for this problem. Legislation protecting these homeowners from such price gouging has been proposed in several states. But with every turn the mobile home lobby has been able to block legislation or pass watered down “compromise” legislation that does nothing to address the true underlying causes of people losing their homes–homes they have invested in, in many cases heavily.
The inaction is a case of lawmakers ignoring their own constituents. It goes deeper than just this one issue, to legislators who listen to powerful lobbies simply because they do not care about people at the bottom rung. The solution is simple–care about the people who own these homes. Treat them with the same respect we do those living in multi-million dollar mansions. They are homeowners who are being ignored simply because they represent an underclass, because people in power believe that they can get away with ignoring their voices. The only way to make change is for that to change.
Legislation and other interventions to stop these abuses of power are relatively straightforward. Movements have emerged that give mobile homeowners the right to own the land their homes sit on. Limits can be put on rent hikes and city councils have the power to deny rezoning requests in order to preserve affordable housing. “Development” is never a foregone conclusion, it is a choice.
America is at a crossroads. It faces a reckoning. Will it continue, at its own peril, to ignore the underdog? or will it begin to see that the rights of those who struggle the most economically are necessary for the functioning of government?
Progressive Without Apology 