“I wake up every day in fear – fear that I will lose my home … Along with my fear, I also have a prayer and my prayer is that someone will help us, someone will help us save our homes. City council members, I’m hoping that you will be that someone.” Jeanne Farrens
NEWS
12/04/2023
Mobile Home Lot Owners Accused of Rent FixingMultiple real estate companies have artificially inflated mobile and manufactured home lot rents across the country for years, a plaintiff claims in a class action filed in federal court in Chicago on December 4, 2023. The antitrust suit names ten companies as defendants, including the nation's largest mobile home appraisal service provider Datacomp. By internally sharing Datacomp's market reports, the plaintiff claims, the other nine defendant companies — Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc., Hometown America Management LLC, Lakeshore Communities, Inc., Sun Communities, Inc., RHP Properties, Inc., YES! Communities, Inc., Inspire Communities LLC, Kingsley Management Corp. and Cal-Am Properties, Inc. — coordinated rent increases that resulted in tenants paying "significant overcharges on manufactured home lot rents throughout the United States." The class action seeks not only to enjoin the defendant companies from carrying on the alleged rent-fixing conspiracy, but also damages commensurate to class members' rent overpayments. Read more 11/09/2023
Lawmakers Introduce Affordable Manufactured Housing Community Bill in House, SenateDemocratic lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, spearheaded by U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) introduced a new bill to the legislature designed to both “preserve” and “revitalize” manufactured home communities across the United States. Cortez Masto’s bill would make the PRICE program permanent and provide funding for home improvements and neighborhood upgrades for eligible Americans on an annual basis. If enacted, the bill would ask the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement “a competitive grant program to award funds to eligible recipients to carry out eligible projects for improvements in eligible manufactured home communities.” Read more 11/03/2023
You're Killing UsIn Castro Valley mobilehome residents were told their rent will double. "I’m ready to have a heart attack over it," said Judy Espinosa who has lived at Avalon Mobile Home Park for more than seven years. "This is our home. This is all we have." Alameda County has a rent stabilization ordinance for mobile home parks in unincorporated areas like Castro Valley. But it states owners are entitled to a fair return. Owners of the park told residents planned improvements and rising expenses including property taxes, insurance, and maintenance make the increase necessary. Now some mobile home residents fear they’ll soon be homeless. Read more 10/25/2023
Sonoma County Passes Ordinance Limiting Rent Increases at Mobile Home ParksThe Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to limit annual rent increases at mobile home parks in unincorporated areas to no more than 4 percent or 70 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less. The amendments to the mobile home ordinance bring Sonoma County’s policy in line with recent updates passed by cities in the county. Read more 10/16/2023
New California Bill AB12 Limits Amount of Security DepositsGov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 12 into law, which states that security deposits canʼt be any larger than one monthʼs rent, on Oct. 11. The law is slated to take effect on July 1, 2024. Assembly Bill 12 was introduced by San Francisco Democratic Assemblymember Matt Haney and aimed to cap the cost of security deposits as part of a broader effort to make housing units more affordable statewide. Read more I nearly emptied my bank account New California Law to Limit Security Deposits 10/16/2023
Class Action: Lawsuit Filed Against MHP Conglomerates Accuses big companies of buying up mobile home parks, driving up rents, pricing out seniors
A new class action lawsuit accuses some of the country’s largest owners and operators of trailer parks and so-called “manufactured home communities” of jacking up rents within those communities and pricing out senior citizens and other vulnerable tenants by conspiring to use shared industry information to corner the market and gobble up supply. The lawsuit asserts the companies named as defendants improperly used industry information, known as JLT Market Reports, supplied by a company known as Datacomp, described in the complaint as “the nation’s largest provider of manufactured mobile home data.” According to the complaint, this then allegedly allowed many of the largest owners of manufactured home communities to coordinate when setting rents, allegedly charging more than they could have with true competition “for what used to be affordable housing.” Read More 10/13/2023
Corporate Thievery in Mobile Home ParksOver time, words with beautiful meanings occasionally get degraded into ugliness. “Gentle,” for example. Originally meaning good natured and kindly, it was twisted into “gentry” in the Middle Ages by very un-gentle land barons seeking a patina of refinement. Then it became a pretentious verb — to “gentrify” — meaning to make something common appear upscale. And now the word has devolved to “gentrification,” describing the greed of developers and speculators who oust middle-and-low-income families from their communities to create trendy enclaves for the rich. The latest move by these profiteers is their meanest yet, targeting families with the most tenuous hold on affordable shelter: People living in mobile home parks. Read More 10/05/2023
Two Petaluma Parks: A Premonition for the Perilous Future of MHP Across the State and NationWith the national trend toward rent control and rent stabilization growing, alarmed real estate conglomerates are trying to find any and all ways to block cities and communities from establishing any limits on their ability to increase rents with impunity and collect their egregious profits. Among these greedy conglomerates are mobile home park owners. Over the summer two parks in Petaluma, Little Woods Mobile Villa and Youngstown MHPs, became victims of the latest scheme by park owners to subvert the protections provided by the city’s rent stabilization ordinance. In spite of being a rent controlled property, after Youngstown MHP was sold to new owners in 2020, residents received a notice of rent increases of up to 40 percent. They fought against the rent hike in arbitration and won and then lobbied the city for stronger ordinances to strengthen the rules around rent control and won again.
But then notices started coming. First there was an advisory that Youngstown might change its senior-only status, followed by a letters from owners of both parks saying they would close altogether, citing that the owners could no longer operate the parks ‘based on measures taken by the state and local government”, a clear reference to the city council’s decision to lower its cap on annual rent increases for mobile home parks. Then in August residents received in the mail a 200 page notice of a rent increase as high as 159%! This all in spite of the city’s rent stabilization ordinance. Petaluma owners are following suit with other conglomerates across the country by claiming that rent control is unconstitutional. “Petaluma’s mobile home rent control ordinance cannot act as an unconstitutional taking of private property, because all property owners in the U.S. are constitutionally entitled to earn a fair and reasonable return on the capital they invested to buy their property." Even though the proposed rent hikes are clearly above the cap, the issue must still go to arbitration. In the meantime, in response to the rent hikes and the fear of park closures, Petaluma park residents have organized. Their struggle is not just about rent increases. They’re fighting for their homes. What’s happening in Petaluma may be shaping up as a much larger legal challenge to the concept of rent control in general. And it may represent a premonition of the perilous future of MH communities across the entire nation. Read the saga of Petaluma in the following articles. Click the following to read the articles - Petaluma mobile home parks threaten closure over rent ordinance 7/19/23 - Petaluma mobile home residents fear eviction by property owners - CBS San Francisco 7/31/23 - Petaluma mobile home residents panicked by massive proposed rent increases - CBS San Francisco 8/10/23 - Petaluma Mobile Home Residents Organize in Fight Against Park Closure 9/7/23 - Petaluma mobile home park residents facing 300% rent increase 10/05/23 10/02/2023
SCOTUS Refuses to Hear NY Anti-Rent Control CaseGreat news! For now.
Landlords had argued that a rent-stabilization law that covers about a million units in NY is an unconstitutional government taking of private property. While the Court announced on Oct 2 that it would not hear the challenge, other petitions asking the Supreme Court to rule on aspects of the regulations are pending. Keep on alert for further decisions on a case that could impact the future of rent stabilization nationally. 09/24/2023
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