Iowa's Manufactured Home Communities Need Protection
Manufactured Home Communities Can Provide Affordable, Healthy Homes
At least 550 manufactured home communities across Iowa have historically provided affordable homes and tight-knit communities to thousands of retirees on fixed incomes, veterans, low-income families, people with disabilities, and employees seeking affordable living near their workplaces.
Iowans Are Getting Pushed Around and Priced Out by Predatory, Out-of-State Investors
A rapid sell-off of manufactured housing communities to out-of-state interests has left thousands of Iowans at the mercy of predatory business practices. Out-of-state investors now control over 25% of Iowa’s manufactured home communities. Corporate owners are gouging residents with high lot rents (increases often ranging from 30-70%), utility overcharges, and new fees, while jeopardizing safety by failing to invest in local maintenance. Residents are suffering and communities are being torn apart.
Weak State Laws Are Failing Iowa
Iowa Code Chapter 562B, covering manufactured homes, has over decades become severely imbalanced in favor of park owners over residents. We need lawmakers to restore basic fairness to both sides, ensure manufactured home residents have rights at least as strong as those of other renters, and preserve affordable housing for Iowa’s future.
Manufactured Home Residents Need a Bill of Rights
The Iowa Manufactured Home Residents Network supports a Residents’ Bill of Rights that includes five pillars: 1) Rent protection, 2) Good cause eviction standards, 3) Fair fees, 4) Fair and legal leases, and 5) Resident first right of refusal when parks are put up for sale.
Our Movement is Growing, Let's Keep Going!
Since 2019, we have supported bi-partisan legislation to increase resident protections and provide checks and balances in a currently one-sided system. As an example, the 2020 proposed bill (HF 2351/SF 2238) included good cause eviction standards, required justification for rent increases that exceed inflation, and enhanced legal protections for manufactured home residents to create parity with other renters in Iowa. This bill had near-unanimous support in the Senate, but under pressure from park owners, House Speaker Pat Grassley refused to bring it to the House for a vote. Similar versions of this legislation have been introduced in years since in repeated attempts to level the playing field between Iowa residents and out-of-state investors who are using our neighborhoods to flip quick profits which immediately leave our state.
It's important to ask our state legislators to introduce similar legislation in future sessions, to hold accountable the park owners and lobbyists who've blocked passage of these bills in the past, and to grow our numbers and support to finally get this legislation across the finish line! Residents won't quit fighting to protect their homes, but shouldn't have to keep waiting for change.