Odyssey-Lake Michigan-Chicago Skyline-Photo credit: SunTimes News Group The National Communities Council (NCC) division of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) held its first annual Fall Leadership Forum on October 16-18, 2013 in Chicago, IL. While most of the event was held at the W Center on 111 West Adams, the dinner on the 17th was held on the Lake Michigan cruise …

A U.S. House of Representatives Democratic staffer told MHLivingNews/MHProNews that the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) has a reputation on Capitol Hill for being anti-consumer. The context of that staffer’s remarks was connected to manufactured home industry connected financing controversies, some of which will be explored in this report. When Mobile and Manufactured Home Living News (MHLivingNews) offered Manufactured Housing Institute …

The “No Shame” part of the headline will be explained near the end of this report and analysis. That said, flashback to 2015 when The Guardian reported that Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) had “nearly” 140,000 homesites for their residents who owned either a pre-HUD Code mobile home (MH) or a post-HUD Code manufactured home (MH).  Needless to say, ELS has …

The AARP Public Policy Institute published a report that merits a closer look, given the fact that inflation is roaring and there is widespread agreement that affordable housing is in great demand. Nearly half of all Americans living in manufactured homes are over 50, said AARP, which cited the sources for their data. AARP’s report below is largely favorable to …

Mobile home or manufactured home living provides affordable, quality housing for some 22 million Americans. While millions own both their manufactured home and the land the home is placed on, several million are placed on leased land. This article is focused issues that ought to be considered by those who own or are considering buying or leasing a home in …

A documentary entitled “Walmart – The High Cost of Low Prices” presaged several of those observations by Kenton in the video posted below. But what does that have to do with affordable housing and manufactured homes? Follow along and, step-by-step, you may see how the dots connect. The stories in the video are gut-wrenching and tug at the heartstrings. Sometimes …

The following is from Fred Neil, who is an elected official on the Dover, Delaware city council. What Neil addresses in his letter to the editor applies to various degrees to dozens of other states. This version sent to MHLivingNews has some modest tweaks by Neil from his original, but the meaning remains the same.   Delaware Taxpayers Shortchanged by …

Complex problems cited in the headline can be simplified by making this specific point. Affordable housing and income or wealth inequality are in several ways related issues. Home ownership is the most common form of wealth building in America. There are already good laws ‘on the books’ that make more affordable housing available. There are also good laws that make …

“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” So said Otto von Bismarck, per GoodReads. The Political Dictionary in the “Art of the Possible” explained it like this: “The “art of the possible” is idea that politics is a matter of pragmatism, instead of idealism. According to this worldview, politics is a …

“You cook, clean, eat, live, and love  much the same in a manufactured home as you would living in one of millions of similar-sized site built houses in the U.S.A.” ©  MHLivingNews has used variations on that phrasing for years, adding the raft that according to U.S. Census Bureau data, at this time a new HUD Code manufactured home is about …

When a school bus plowed into what was likely an older manufactured home that was described by mainstream media as a “mobile home,” that kind of accident is a rare event. To illustrate the rarity: “From the years 2007 through 2016, there were 1,147 school-transportation-related crashes. Typically, there are approximately 114 school bus accidents in a year. In 2016, there …

During an affordable housing crisis, the best known, most proven solution to that troubling challenge for millions requires no federal subsidies or new legislation – HUD Code manufactured homes – oddly remains thwarted. Those apparently artificial obstacles exist despite often supportive federal laws. As part of our periodic series of reports with analysis to better understand the issues involved, the …

“For millions of renters, we’re cracking down on big landlords who break antitrust laws by price-fixing and driving up rents.” – Joe Biden, State of the Union (SOTU) address 3.7.2024, per transcript on right-leaning Breitbart. That isn’t just rents that are being driven up, it is other housing costs – purchase prices, interest rates – that are part of the problem …

Perhaps 75 to 80 percent of manufactured home communities are owned by local owners who are often in a good working relationship with their residents. But the other 20 percent or so may fall into a different category, and that segment will be part of the subject of this report with expert analysis. “My name is Tim Sheahan and I …