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A new Department of Energy (DOE) rule requiring mobile homes to be made more energy-efficient in order to reduce carbon emissions not only will have no effect on carbon emissions, but also will drive up the cost of such housing, making it unaffordable for many low-income households.The DOE’s rule — all 97 pages of it — requires mobile, or manufactured, homes to meet strict energy-conservation standards by improving insulation and sealing. The rule is set to take effect next Wednesday, barely more than a year after it was finalized.“DOE’s new energy efficiency rules will help save the 17 million Americans...

Severe storms in the South that killed at least 21 people in Mississippi and Alabama highlight the dangers of being inside a mobile home or manufactured home during severe weather. Many of the dozens of homes destroyed in the storms were manufactured. In the hardest-hit community of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, 24% of housing units in the county are manufactured homes according to the Census Bureau. To really drive it home, the National Weather Service says you are 15-20% more likely to die in a manufactured home than a permanent home during severe weather. The danger is magnified in the southeastern...

For as long as anyone can remember, rent increases rarely happened at Ridgeview Homes, a family-owned mobile home park in upstate New York. That changed in 2018 when corporate owners took over the 65-year-old park located amid farmland and down the road from a fast-food joint and grocery store about 30 miles northeast of Buffalo. Residents, about half of whom are seniors or disabled people on fixed incomes, put up with the first two increases. They hoped the latest owner, Cook Properties, would address the bourbon-colored drinking water, sewage bubbling into their bathtubs and the pothole-filled roads.

From its bamboo floors to its rooftop deck, Clayton Homes' new industrial-chic "i-house" is about as far removed from a mobile home as an iPod from a record player. Architects at the country's largest manufactured home company embraced the basic rectangular form of what began as housing on wheels and gave it a postmodern turn with a distinctive v-shaped roofline, energy efficiency and luxury appointments. Stylistically, the "i-house" might be more at home in the pages of a cutting-edge architectural magazine like Dwell— an inspirational source — than among the Cape Cods and ranchers in the suburbs. The layout of...

The Vernon Parish Police Jury on Monday approved Champion Home Builders for participation in the parish’s ad valorem tax exemptions under the industrial tax exemption program, clearing the way for a $1.3 million plant to build manufactured homes in Leesville. Jury President Jim Tuck said Champion plans to create 200 new direct jobs at the plant in Northside Industrial Park. “I am very proud for the City of Leesville, as well as the surrounding communities,” Leesville Mayor Rick Allen said. “The jobs that this company will provide are desperately needed. We have worked to lease the Industrial Park, not to...

The mobile home park has been around as a real estate sector for over half a century. However, it has remained in complete obscurity except for a few lucky investors and such heavyweights as Sam Zell. But 2017 is the year in which mobile home parks will finally be identified for the wonderful business models that they are, as well as the prime solution to the affordable housing crisis in America. And this attention is coming from a number of sources. The U.S. government After being ignored by the Federal Government for the past 50 years, that period of silence...

Tony Hsieh could buy a private island if he wanted to. The Zappos CEO has a reported net worth of $840 million. But Hsieh chooses to live in a Las Vegas trailer park he owns, according to a recent profile in The New York Times. The trailer park is "crammed with shiny silver Airstreams that are rented out to visiting computer coders," according to David Gelles at The Times. Hsieh lives in a trailer in the community he calls "Llamapolis" with his pet alpaca. The trailer park is part of Hsieh's $350 million investment into making Las Vegas a metropolitan...

Houses made in a factory are a cheap and energy-efficient way for poorer Americans to become homeowners—plus, these days, the mass-produced units can be pretty spiffy. You’ve seen it before: a house, on a truck, on a highway, slowing down traffic with its yellow “OVERSIZED LOAD” sign, its tan vinyl siding nearly screaming “Trailer Park!” The snobs among us may judge these pre-fab homes as shoddily built, cheap eyesores in a country that’s increasingly eschewing the suburbs for walkable urban areas. But pre-fabricated homes just might be part of the solution to America's affordable housing crisis. Home prices are continuing...

Have any of you heard of VOTER homes before? I suppose it is technically legal but....

Most of the mobile homes in the U.S. are located in the south, where land is more plentiful, the weather is warmer, and rural poverty is higher. The region is home to over 56% of the mobile housing units in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey data released Monday. Specifically, two cities outside of Jacksonville, Fla., had the country's highest concentration of mobile homes, which are generally about 12-feet wide and include a kitchen, a living and dining area, and one or two smaller bedrooms. While mobile homes make up only 6.17% of the...

The last I heard they were just sitting there

The House bill is modeled on law in Indiana, where tornado killed 20 in one home park: WASHINGTON ; All new manufactured homes would have to come with a weather-alert radio under legislation introduced in the House. "I was almost stunned that such a wonderful idea as this, that we hadn't done it before," said one sponsor, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala. Named for a 2-year-old boy killed in a tornado in Indiana in 2005, C.J.'s Home Protection Act would change the federal safety standards for manufactured homes and make the industry pay for the receivers and their installation before the...

Gov tells manufactured home owners to take a hike May 10, 2006 BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Gov. Blagojevich quickly used his veto this week to nix the most benign of bills. You have to wonder why. This is nothing less than a David and Goliath story. Little guys vs. the big boys. And so far, let me tell you, the little guys are losing big-time. This all centers on what are called manufactured-home communities, something we used to call trailer parks back when those dwellings were truly mobile. They are not anymore. Manufactured homes are simply more affordable than...

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — After seeing row upon row upon row of mobile homes lined up at the Hope airport Saturday, Senate minority leader Harry Reid expressed dismay at the failure of President Bush's administration to put the trailers to use sheltering hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast. "I'm terribly mystified, disappointed and ashamed for our country," the Nevada senator said after he and Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., visited the site where the Federal Emergency Management Agency is storing the mobile homes, bought after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the homes of thousands of people in Louisiana and Mississippi. "I can't imagine...

S VEGAS - Wading nearly knee-deep in the mattresses, sooted clothing and discarded tires dumped outside his trailer, Rubin Reams wants visitors to know he hasn't always lived this way. The 51-year-old poker dealer never had much of a financial cushion. But he worked full time and steadily, and owned a 40-foot double tip-out trailer he happily called home. ADVERTISEMENT Then the mobile home park he lived in was sold to a developer, and the rug — like the land — was pulled out from under him. "I've always been able to survive. But sometimes I can't believe I got...

The superheated housing market isn't a bonanza for everyone: Residents of at least four Portland area manufactured-housing parks have been forced to move in the past few months as park owners, seduced by skyrocketing land prices, sell to developers. Manufactured home parks in Beaverton, Tualatin, Wilsonville and West Linn serving primarily low-income older residents have shut down within the past six months or are in the process of closing. They're being redeveloped for retail use or housing, with rents expected to far exceed what is collected from park residents. "Everybody's upset," said Vera Loar, 90, a 20-year resident of a...

MANVEL - Dietra Smith bought a mobile home after the old two-story house where she lived with her husband burned in May. But now city officials say zoning regulations prohibit the couple from moving the home onto the 10 acres where they have lived at the end of Cemetery Road for 33 years. "We have no other place to go," Smith, 60, said as she stood in front of the 30-foot-long travel trailer where she and her husband, Ed, temporarily live. "If they don't let us move it here, what else are we to do?" In an attempt to beautify...

Cape Coral and Hurricane Charley August 18, 2004 By Mary F. Stump Cape Coral, Florida westump@earthlink.net Hey folks! We got back into town on Sunday afternoon, passed Punta Gorda and a mobile home village -- or what was left of it -- butted up against Interstate 75. There is nothing but debris -- aluminum, fiberglass, wood all strewn about in patternless fashion. Sign poles with directions and exits from I-75 are snapped off or broken in half, while the signs themselves are laying haphazardly bent and twisted on the ground or hanging on fences. Destruction on a massive scale like...

<p>MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) --  The Rev. Lawrence Beadle's three-bedroom home along South Carolina's Grand Strand is appointed with all the traditional touches: black shutters, a picture window and a carport.</p> <p>Those amenities may be part of the reason mobile homes such as Beadle's are growing in popularity here and across the country.</p>