Private Equity Devouring Last Affordable Housing In US: Mobile Homes, Latest Target, Rents Spike

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PBS Newshour, Rents Spike as Large Corporate Investors Buy Mobile Home Parks, July 25, 2022

LOCKPORT, N.Y. (AP) — 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.

When that didn’t happen and a new lease with a 6 percent increase was imposed this year, they formed an association. About half the residents launched a rent strike in May, prompting Cook Properties to send out about 30 eviction notices. “All they care about is raising the rent because they only care about the money,” said Jeremy Ward, 49, who gets by on just over $1,000 a month in disability payments after his legs suffered nerve damage in a car accident.

He was recently fined $10 for using a leaf blower. “I’m disabled,” he said. “You guys aren’t doing your job and I get a violation?”

READ MORE: Investors are buying up mobile home parks. These Fresno tenants have a different idea...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/rents-spike-as-large-corporate-investors-buy-mobile-home-parks