Manufactured Housing Impacts on Sustainability and Affordability

There are approximately 1,600 manufactured home communities (MHCs - also known as “mobile home parks” or “land-lease communities”) in PA, home to thousands of working families, seniors, and ordinary Pennsylvanians.​ In the last 10 years, private-equity and large real estate investment corporations have “discovered” MHCs as the foolproof “cash cow” of commercial real estate and have rushed to purchase communities, aggressively raise “below-market” rents, and trade or consolidate for ever-increasing returns. The homeowners who own homes in these communities are finding themselves priced out and with no options to own or rent anything in their hometowns.​ Over the last 40 years, Resident Owned Communities (ROCs) have proven themselves to be a solution to preserving this “largest source of unsubsidized affordable homeownership in the country”.​ Representatives from ROC USA, the National Consumer Law Center and the Centre County Planning and Community Development Office will bring you up to date on why MHCs are an important part of every community’s housing market, how ROCs preserve and revitalize these neighborhoods, and what the role of community planners are in ensuring that communities are not losing existing affordable housing while they struggle to create new. This is an opportunity to test your assumptions, raise your concerns and challenge the practitioners. Guest Host: APA Pennsylvania Chapter CM 1.5 Eq 1.0