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“Let’s make sure people understand what’s available,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson about affordable housing, as he spotlighted manufactured homes as a key part of the Innovations in Housing display on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
“You can get one of these manufactured houses, for instance, for 30 percent less, and they are very, very resilient. Because that is the other point. You look at what’s happened in the last 13 days in tornado alley and all of the homes that are being destroyed. We need to come up with more resilient housing. And these manufactured houses withstands those kinds of storms better,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson to Bloomberg News in a video posted further below.
“But also [manufactured homes] can be put up very quickly.” Secretary Carson said.
“And then we have people who can put infrastructure in,” Secretary Carson said, connecting the dots between not only manufactured homes, but also the integrated technologies need for sewer, water, gas and other utilities necessary for their residents.
Secretary Carson pointed to the Capitol, and spoke about the need for legislators to understand these developments. He said they’ve been inviting legislators down, “…so they understand what we are talking about and they can all get behind it.”
“We as a nation have the ability to solve the affordable housing crisis if we work together,” Carson said in the video below. Manufactured homes are prominently in the background as he spoke.
In another video report from Sinclair Broadcasting Group (SBG), Secretary Carson spoke to Armstrong Williams at the Innovative Housing Showcase sponsored by HUD on the National Mall. Williams and Carson’s professional relationship predates his prominent role at HUD.
The second video features a glimpse at other forms of affordable housing, but Carson spoke about manufactured homes favorably in both videos.
All of what he said blends seamlessly into his previous comments almost a month ago, provided by HUD to Manufactured Home Living News (MHLivingNews), and linked below.
Inexplicably, while touting their own ‘fly in’ for some weeks – a lobbying and fund raising event for the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) – MHI still didn’t have Secretary Carson’s full address to given to their own meeting on May 7, 2019 on their website. Why not?
In fairness and accuracy, MHI did post an abbreviated version of the first video above on Thursday, May 30th to their fly-in page. Plus, MHI a second video that included a ‘gotcha’ question near the end asked by the reporter.
Web searches on 6.3.2019 did not readily turn up these positive messages, save here or on our sister site, or with other search terms a limited number of mentions that somehow also miss MHI. Why?
Given the affordable housing crisis, that begs several questions. How serious is MHI about promoting manufactured homes? Or are there conflicts of interest at play, as their dominant member, Clayton Homes becomes more involved in conventional housing, where they could make higher profit margins? See the related reports for more.
These questions are important, because savvy consumers that become interested in manufactured homes want to know, why are so relatively few being sold? Reports linked below delve into those questions.
Internal industry politics and controversies aside, Secretary Carson has arguably done more to promote manufactured homes on national and local news outlets than his predecessors have for years.
Other reports here on MHLivingNews reflects a deeper understanding of the claims that Secretary Carson has made in his video comments. Home seekers and affordable housing advocates should dive more deeply into the statements Carson made in the Bloomberg and Sinclair Broadcasting Group videos, posted above.
More on this in the days ahead. “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Lifestyle news, commentary, fact-checks, and analysis.)
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L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach is co-founder of MHLivingNews, MHProNews, and is a 25 plus year award-winning manufactured home industry professional. Kovach earned the Lottinville award in history at the University of Oklahoma.
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