'Piggy banks.' High rents and neglect claimed in Mass. trailer parks. What's the answer?

If Jeani Warish won the Powerball , she would buy Rocky Knoll Estates in Taunton .

Warish, a 10-year resident of the manufactured housing community , more commonly known as mobile home or trailer parks, doesn’t play the Powerball, but she and other residents have long wished they could own the 158-lot park.

“We would buy the park and then we’d be able to keep the rents down, because any profit is not going to someone else, but back into the park,” Warish said. “That’s a dream for a lot of us.”

The residents of Rocky Knoll Estates have faced yearly rent increases. The monthly rent in 2013 when Warish moved in was $401. In 2024, it is $696 per month.

Residents of manufactured housing communities own the house itself but pay rent on the land underneath. As Warish put it, paying nearly $700 for a “parking space that has utilities” is a struggle.

High rent and neglect

Across the commonwealth, residents of manufactured housing communities are facing high rent increases and neglect from the investors that own the parks. Both residents and lawmakers are pushing for solutions, such as rent stabilization, to alleviate this pressure.

“In Massachusetts, just recently, it’s been a serious issue,” said Deborah Winiewicz, the association director of New England Resident-Owned Communities. “Rents do have to go up sometimes just because of the cost … but you’ve got to be fair.”

There are about 250 manufactured housing parks in Massachusetts, serving 35,000 residents . The homes are built on chassis and brought into parks on wheels. However, moving these “mobile homes” can cost up to $13,000 .

Oversight board pitched as one solution

Rep. James Hawkins, D-Attleboro, recently introduced a bill intended to stabilize rent in these communities, allowing cities or towns to adopt oversight boards.

Owners of manufactured housing communities would not be allowed to raise the rent by more than the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers — a measure of the monthly change of prices — unless the board determines it will “yield a fair net operating income,” according to the bill.

“What it means is that anything that these owners do has to be in compliance with existing state law so they can’t gouge their tenants,” Hawkins said. “There is no place for [residents] to go, so whatever level of protection we can give them, we have to do it.”

If the bill were to pass, the onus would shift onto the city or town to establish a rent stabilization board. Hawkins said Taunton and Attleboro were two cities that would adopt the board.

Trailer parks seen as 'piggy banks'

In recent years, investors have seen manufactured housing communities as a growing form of passive income, according to the New Yorker . A sign that an investment firm has bought a manufactured housing community is a “dramatic spike” in lot rent.

“Wealthy people who have resources to invest are often advised by their financial planners to invest in manufactured housing. That investment is sometimes described as ‘the piggy bank for growing your wealth,’” said Rep. Carol Doherty, D-Taunton. “There’s a great crisis that is growing.”

What happens when residents purchase their parks?

Some parks in Massachusetts have become cooperative resident-owned communities, utilizing the commonwealth’s “right of first refusal” law. This law allows tenants to purchase the park if it goes for sale so long as at least 51% of the community approves the purchase.

ROC USA is one organization that helps these communities secure financing and organize the park’s structure to control rent, avoid unfair evictions and protect against liability.

There are 28 resident-owned communities in Massachusetts that are run like “a small town,” Winiewicz said. These parks set up rules and bylaws committees, boards of directors and a finance committee, as well as meet annually to vote on a budget and any rent increases.

“Seniors can age in place,” Winiewicz said. “I’d like to see more ROCs for that protection, and I’d like to see new ones built.”

However, if a community doesn’t go up for sale, they are at the “mercy” of their owners, Winiewicz said.

On Cape Cod

Pocasset Mobile Home Park off Barlow's Landing Road in Bourne was engulfed in a years-long legal battle where both Crown Communities LLC and the residents' Pocasset Park Association wanted ownership of the park.

Crown, which owns and operates mobile home parks nationwide, entered a purchase and sale agreement with owner Philip Austin as trustee of the Charles W. Austin Trust on Nov. 15, 2019 for $3.8 million in an all-cash sale. Notice was sent to residents five days later. Under the state's right-of-first-refusal statute, park residents submitted a matching bid, working with New England Resident-Owned Communities, which partnered with the Cooperative Development Institute.

The organizations help residents to both secure ownership of their mobile home parks and get loans to match private bidders and cover any capital projects needed on the site.

A Barnstable Superior Court judge ruled in 2022 that the association fell short in fulfilling the requirements needed to win the park, which included having signatures from at least 51% of residents.

The matter has since been appealed to the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

According to the assessor's office, the property is still owned by the Charles W. Austin Trust.

In Wareham

In Wareham, residents of Royal Crest mobile home community park learned a private investor was eyeing their community for purchase. In 2022, Legacy Communities, an Arizona investment company which owns and operates dozens of manufactured housing communities in the U.S., submitted an unsolicited offer of $12.1 million to buy the 55-plus senior community.

Residents formed a cooperative and submitted their own offer for the park with help from Cooperative Development Institute and Resident-Owned Communities.

The $12.1 million came together from private lenders, state funds and support from ROC USA's Community Development Financial Institution subsidiary, ROC USA® Capital. For the first time, the Massachusetts Department of Housing & Community Development offered Affordable Housing Trust funds to this sort of affordable housing endeavor.

Today, Royal Crest is now the 28th resident-owned manufactured home community in Massachusetts.

Lawyers issue cease-and-desist letters to landlords

Lawyers for Civil Rights is an organization also fighting rent increases. In January, LCR issued a cease-and-desist letter to the landlord of two central Massachusetts manufactured housing communities — American Mobile Home Park and Whispering Pine Estates — citing “exorbitant rent increases” and “dangerous and unsanitary conditions,” according to a press release .

“Most of the communities are at the whim of the rent increase,” Overlock said. “Manufactured housing has been designated low-income affordable housing for a long time now, and when you get to a point where the rents are no longer affordable, you price these people out.”

Manufactured housing communities are often senior citizen communities

Many manufactured housing communities in Massachusetts are senior citizen communities restricted to residents 55 and older. Many of these residents are on a fixed income due to pensions and Social Security, making the increases more difficult to keep up with.

These increases can lead residents to cut down on food or medication to avoid eviction, Winiewicz said.

If Hawkins’ bill doesn’t pass and no progress is made, Overlock fears the residents will have to “abandon their homes or live on the streets.”

“There won’t be any place for these people to live,” Overlock said. “Cities are going to have to come up with a plan with some kind of affordable housing for them.”

Stereotypes of trailer parks

Winiewicz said manufactured housing communities being overlooked is a “50-year-old struggle” due to the stereotypes that surround them.

“People have to stop looking at facts and figures and start looking at the people behind it,” Warish said. “We’re not giving up at all, no matter what happens with these bills, we’re not going away.”

The bill is in the Legislature’s Housing Committee until April. If it advances, it would go to the House Ways and Means Committee and a full House vote before going to the Senate. Hawkins said there’s no opposition to the legislation but said it was up to him to ensure the issue gets “visibility.”

“These people don’t want to leave their homes. They all poured their life savings into them,” Overlock said. “This is the rest of their lives. This home that they bought was a piece of land that they can sit on their porches and have their own little peace and serenity.”

Reporter Zane Razzaq contributed to this story.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: 'Piggy banks.' High rents and neglect claimed in Mass. trailer parks. What's the answer?