Parks closing at an alarming rate
In Washington State, approximately 143 communities have
closed in the past 15 years, displacing more than 4000 families.
Between May 2006 and December 2007, 38 of these communities have
closed or will close, pushing out another 1400 households. For
the majority of these residents, there’s no place to go. The
term “mobile home” is typically a misnomer: many of these homes
cannot be moved and will have to be demolished at the
homeowner’s expense. Other homeowners, even if their homes can
be moved, can’t find another park with room for their home.
While parks continue to close, very few are opening to take
their place. This is due to a range of factors but chief among
them is the skyrocketing cost of raw land, particularly in the
Puget Sound corridor and other areas within the state’s Urban
Growth Boundaries (UGBs). Another factor is the negative way
manufactured housing communities have been viewed by many
municipalities and potential neighbors in the past. Now,
however, that attitude may be changing. From the people who make
their homes in these parks to elected officials at all levels,
from community activists and caring neighbors to local housing
authorities (HAs) and park owners, most people involved are
working hard to come up with answers to this problem and are
working together with good will.
The recent purchase of two manufactured housing parks in
Lynnwood, just north of Seattle, with funding from both
Snohomish County and the state; and, the voluntary efforts of
Wenatchee park owner KamKon to relocate its Ninth Street Mobile
Home Park residents to more affordable land, illustrate the
potential for finding solutions for other communities that will
no doubt be up for closure in the months and years to come. With
enough education, willingness to work together, hard work and
financial assistance, many communities can be preserved.
Heroes—and success stories
Ishbel Dickens has been advocating for manufactured housing
residents for the 20 years that I have known her. She started
out as a volunteer collecting signatures on a petition to
organize neighbors to try to stop Costco from purchasing a
mobile home park in north Seattle (Costco was staved off but the
park’s site is now occupied by a Home Depot store). Ishbel’s
life’s work has evolved from petition collector to community
organizer for the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) on
manufactured housing issues, to her current role as a passionate
champion for the rights of the tenants who live in these
communities.
Ishbel Dickens
Columbia Legal Services
“People seem to think a manufactured housing community is up for
grabs. Very little thought is given to the actual
homeowners living there."
Some years ago, Ishbel went to law school “to have even more
tools in the tool kit to be a strong advocate for manufactured
homeowners.” Now an attorney with nonprofit Columbia Legal
Services, “I have the job of my dreams,” Ishbel says. Her
efforts have been essential in organizing park residents who
face closures, enlisting the support of municipal leaders, and
advocating for tenant rights in the legislature.
Unfortunately, she’s witnessed dozens of closures over the
past two decades. “Within city limits, manufactured housing
communities are sometimes the largest tracts of raw land,”
Ishbel says. She points to countless situations—in both eastern
and western Washington—where waterfront properties and other
appealing sites have been converted to upscale condos and
townhomes. In other cases, commercial development is the
culprit: big box stores like Wal-Mart, or shopping malls.
“People seem to think a manufactured housing community is up
for grabs,” she says. “Very little thought is given to the
actual homeowners living there, whose homes might be their only
asset—that might be swelling the ranks of people looking for
subsidized rentals, because they can’t afford anything else.”
Ishbel is currently focusing on
the park preservation issue and other tenants’ rights issues.
One bill that she and many others advocated for over the past
five years was finally passed this legislative session: HB 1461.
“This is probably the strongest manufactured housing
landlord-tenant enforcement act in the country. It’s huge,” she
stresses. Through HB 1461, park residents will now have recourse
to the Attorney General’s office for resolving disputes
concerning violations of the manufactured/mobile home
landlord-tenant act. The act also provides fines for park owners
that violate the law.
“The vast majority of tenants don’t know what rights they
have; they often aren’t aware that they only have 12 months’
notice of a park closure”—a guarantee required by state law. “We
need longer-term leases,” she says. “We need more security.” She
cites the predicament of one of her clients, who is being forced
to move her home for the third time. “When parks close, most
people can’t maintain homeownership. That’s ridiculous. We’re
advocating for more homeownership and affordable housing at all
levels and yet we’re closing parks. And people are losing their
one opportunity to be homeowners.”
Ishbel can point to about 10 manufactured housing parks in
our state that have been preserved, thanks in part to her
efforts. In 2005, with the help of the City of Winslow as well
as concerned citizens on Bainbridge Island, a park was saved and
converted to a cooperative. LIHI owns one preserved park; King
County Housing Authority owns several. Another nonprofit
organization, Manufactured Housing Community Preservationists
(MHCP), has saved and maintains four Puget Sound-area parks and
parks in Lacey and Tumwater are owned by residents as well.
SOS: Not going down without a fight
Most recently, in March of this year, the ink dried on the
purchase of Kingsbury East and Squire, two senior parks in
Lynnwood, by the Housing Authority of Snohomish County (HASCO).
This is a story of remarkable efforts and partnerships. The
preservation effort, says housing authority director Bob Davis,
“involved everybody doing things they don’t normally do. When we
originally met with both the county and the state last summer,
they basically said, ‘no, we can’t do this.’ But they did. It
worked. It came together.”
Kylin Parks
Co-founder, Save Our Seniors' (SOS) Homes
"We had over 100 people at the city council meeting with only
two days’ notice. It was important to show the city that we were
united in wanting to save our homes."
What got the ball rolling were the efforts of the park’s
residents. “The homeowners did an amazing job of community
organizing,” says Ishbel. “As soon as they knew the park was
being sold, they got the politicians involved, at the city,
county, and state levels. They mobilized the wider community;
the press coverage was fabulous.” Kylin Parks, who lives in
Kingsbury East, led the charge. “Kylin volunteered a huge amount
of energy and effort,” says Ishbel.
The tenants organized immediately after discovering that
their park had been sold to a developer. Kylin recalls that “we
said there’s a city council meeting on Monday, let’s get fliers
out and pack it in. If we go down, it’s not without a fight. We
had over 100 people at the city council meeting with only two
days’ notice.” The group quickly formed a homeowners’
association and got 98% of the residents as members. “It was
important to show the city that we were united in wanting to
save our homes,” she says.
Kylin and others who worked to save Kingsbury East and Squire
formed Save Our Seniors’ (SOS) Homes, which is now working on
preservation issues with residents in about 10 other parks. “We
decided it was our obligation to help others in the same boat to
learn from our crash-course expertise,” Kylin says. From her
perspective, good communications with park owners might help
avert what happened with their park—it was sold before the
residents even had a chance to pull together to try to save it.
SOS’s philosophy? “Start a friendly, open dialogue with the
owner. Get organized, get ready. Have your eyes open.”
In addition to SOS, there are two other organizations in the
state that are dedicated to tenants’ rights, the Mobile Home
Tenants Association, and the Mobile Home Owners of America. The
three groups, Kylin explains, are attempting to merge. To be
successful, “we really need paid staff.” Ishbel is searching for
grant funding to hire a paid community organizer for a statewide
coalition, similar to Minnesota’s successful All Parks Alliance
for Change.
Securing the two parks in Lynnwood
Time is of the essence in any real estate transaction. So
when Bob Davis heard about the sale of the Kingsbury East and
Squire communities, he knew he’d have to act fast if he wanted
to preserve them.
He had two advantages right from the beginning. First, the
residents were already organized and committed to saving their
homes. Second, he already had developed ideas about how to
finance a park buyout, because he’d been in discussions with the
owner of another park in Snohomish County. As a result, when
owner/developer Michael Echelbarger confirmed that he was
willing to sell, Davis already had an action plan in place.
But a huge challenge remained. HASCO needed to obtain $9.8
million in financing in order to close the deal. As Bob
explains, “theoretically, this should have been impossible
because of the way the funding cycles are set up in the state of
Washington.” Typically, applicants who approach the Housing
Trust Fund (HTF) for grants in the fall have already
demonstrated their commitments from local governments. HASCO was
able to expedite the process by promising to obtain a contingent
loan agreement from Snohomish County.
At the same
time, both HASCO and the park residents joined in
appealing to Representative Brian Sullivan, who got involved as
their advocate in the legislature. In addition, Representative
Hans Dunshee lent his support in his role at the time as chair
of the Capital Budget Committee.
As it turned out, the HTF declined the funding, but the
legislature approved the full amount of the request, $3.5
million, as a federal HOME allocation, contingent upon the
county supplying the balance. HASCO then worked with Snohomish
County officials to borrow $2.5 million over a three-year
period. The final piece was $3.8 million raised through
tax-exempt bond financing; the tenants’ monthly rental fees pay
off the interest on this part of the debt.
A good deal
With a total cost of $9.8 million to preserve 94 homes, was
this transaction an efficient use of resources? Bob says the
answer is an emphatic “yes.” While it cost taxpayers
approximately $100,000 per home to preserve the two parks, new
construction for seniors would probably cost in the neighborhood
of $225,000-250,000 per unit.
Bob admits that new construction would be superior in quality
and cost the occupants less in rent; but apartment living isn’t
for everyone. “Some seniors hate secure elevator buildings,”
says Bob. “They want to live in a single-family environment,
where they can walk out their own front door. That’s why these
folks cling to their communities, even though, physically, the
unit they’re going to get is inferior.”
In the final analysis, manufactured housing communities
represent a relatively inexpensive solution for a segment of the
senior population that values its independence. Taxpayers also
got a good secure investment in real property that will hold its
value in years to come.
A huge conundrum
Representative Brian Sullivan serves Washington’s 21st
District, which includes the northern Puget Sound cities of
Edmonds, Lynnwood, Mukilteo, and parts of Mountlake Terrace and
Everett. “Just in my district alone, I have 34 manufactured
housing parks. The City of Lynnwood has 17 parks. We’ve been
working diligently to try to represent these residents well in
Olympia—to give all tenants in all manufactured housing units an
equal chance,” he affirms.
Representative Brian Sullivan
Washington State Representative
"We’ve got this human misery issue that’s difficult. Somehow we
have to find a balance between the private property rights of
the park owners and also the needs of these tenants."
Toward that end, Brian worked on two bills this last
legislative session.
The first bill authorized dollars and tax credits towards
financing for the nonprofit purchase of manufactured housing
parks, whether residents form their own nonprofit organization
or a public entity ultimately owns the park. “We worked on that
bill all session, we dropped it late—but what we did get was $4
million carved out of the HTF for the purchase of these parks,”
Brian says.
“Many people remarked that the HTF was already available for
the purchase of manufactured housing parks: they’re not
restricted from doing it, so why carve out the $4 million?
That’s because the HTF hasn’t been working on it. We wanted a
specific carve-out as a minimum amount of money that can be
used. We wanted to get staff motivated at CTED and within the
HTF to really pay attention to this issue,” he says.
The second bill is HB 1621. “This is a preservation bill
which will allow tenants the ability to form an association and
will give them 90 days to try to purchase their park under a
first right of refusal.” The bill allows a large state excise
tax break to the seller if a property is sold to the
residents—to encourage manufactured housing park owners to sell
to them. The bill didn’t make it out of the finance committee.
“We have a huge conundrum here,” Brian admits. “Manufactured
housing park owners can be very compassionate, but when they’re
elderly and they want to sell, they don’t want to face the
tenants. We’ve got this human misery issue that’s difficult.
Somehow we have to find a balance between the private property
rights of the park owners and also the needs of these tenants:
All they get is a one-year lease. Many of the park tenants in my
district are elderly, and it will cost them $12,000 to move
their home. For the Puget Sound region, this is one of the last
vestiges of affordable housing.”
Brian tells me that these bills are still alive—he’s working
with Ishbel, SOS, and other tenants’ rights groups to advocate
for passage next year. “This is about preserving affordable
housing, taking care of our seniors, maintaining a balance,” he
says. “I’m a big supporter of property rights. But when it comes
at the expense of people’s health and living conditions, we have
to do something to step in and try to provide that balance.”
One of the biggest affordable housing providers in the state
Ken Spencer, executive director of Manufactured Housing
Communities of Washington (MHCW), has many nice things to say
about Brian Sullivan but they share an amicable ‘agree to
differ’ stance when representing their constituencies. In Ken’s
case, that’s the membership of MHCW, who are many of the park
owners and managers across the state. MHCW has more than 500
members who provide some 37,000 spaces, representing
approximately one-third of the communities in the state—and
nearly one-half of the spaces.
“We’re all interested in the preservation of manufactured
housing communities,” Ken says. “And we’re proud of the fact
that we’ve financed affordable housing. We’re one of the biggest
providers in the state.” Ken points out that his members are
under pressure on many fronts. “Many times, communities are
trying to force us to close and we have to fight that battle. At
the other end is a property rights issue.” From the perspective
of MHCW, Ken says, a property may have been maintained “for 30
or 40 years as affordable housing, but as the owner nears
retirement, the land around it has built up in value so much
that it’s no longer the highest and best use of that land.”
Ken Spencer
Executive Director, Manufactured Housing Communities of
Washington
"We’re all interested in the preservation of manufactured
housing communities. And we’re proud of the fact that we’ve
financed affordable housing. We’re one of the biggest providers
in the state.”
MHCW is opposed to HB 1621. Ken and his members point to
their two major reasons why: The bill presents “a very serious
property rights issue,” he affirms. “No buyer will wait in line
for the time periods they have in that bill for first right of
refusal. It will chase away other legitimate buyers.” Second,
MHCW takes issue with the bill’s definition of fair market
value. “They would have three people come out to assess the
property as a manufactured housing park,” Ken points out. “That
might not be highest and best use; a whole category of
investment would be taken away from the owners.”
To Ken’s mind, attempts to restrict property rights will
ultimately “drive people to take capital out of the industry.
Some of our members have said ‘we’ve had it.’ We’ve watched them
leave Washington to go somewhere else. There’s clearly a
societal benefit to affordable housing. We need it—we need a lot
more than we’ve got. But you can’t put the onus on a small group
of property owners to provide it.”
I asked Ken what his members see as a remedy to this crisis.
“Less restrictive zoning, lower impact fees, municipalities
willing to side with us. Hardly anyone is trying to build right
now. Instead, lots of municipalities are trying to get rid of
us.” South of Seattle, in towns like Burien and Des Moines, he
says, “they want to see parks developed into shopping malls, to
get a bigger tax base.”
“We also have manufactured housing communities that won’t
allow single-wide homes. They’re misapplying legislation that
was never meant to apply to our communities.” But currently when
a park closes, many single-wide homes are banned from other
parks.
Ken’s organization would
also like to see better education and preparation for tenants,
so that when a property goes up for sale, they’re ready. “My
members see qualified resident groups that are willing to buy as
a good thing. The real key is for residents to get together and
organize ahead of time to arrange financing.” He spoke highly of
the consulting program for tenants offered through CTED’s Office
of Manufactured Housing.
Since the end of World War II, manufactured housing
communities have served as one of the largest sources of
unsubsidized affordable housing in the U.S. There are
approximately 1800-2000 of these parks in Washington State.
Pictured here is Thomas Place, near Mill Creek in Western
Washington.
He also brought up the elephant in the room, otherwise known
as the Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs). “The Growth Management
Act (GMA) says: here’s a circle we can’t build outside of. So
the price of land inside it went through the ceiling. And that’s
where most manufactured housing communities are.” Ken spoke of
the need for the legislature to take on this crisis by taking a
hard look at the UGBs. He stresses that new parks have very
little impact: they maintain all their own infrastructure and
roads and, for those communities dedicated to seniors 55 and
older, schools aren’t an issue either.
“We want to see cooperative legislation,” Ken says. “We’re
the ones who provide affordable housing; we wonder sometimes why
we’re the ones who are under attack.”
Under Scrutiny: Washington State’s Urban Growth Boundaries
Efforts are underway by
Senator Bob McCaslin and Rep. Lynn
Schindler, who both represent the 4th Legislative District east
of Spokane, to take on the issue of UGBs.
Senator Bob McCaslin
Washington State Senator
"We’re creating homelessness if we don’t address this problem.
The GMA has been in effect for 17 years. You can
imagine the pressures on land within those UGBs.”
“I’ve asked the good Senator—Brian Weinstein, chair of the
Consumer Protection and Housing Committee—to hold a hearing on
this,” Bob McCaslin told me. Bob tried to work in an amendment
last year on one of the homeless bills, to provide for the
construction of manufactured housing parks outside the UGBs. It
was defeated. “Now we’re in a situation,” he says, “where we’re
closing these parks, and there’s no place for the homeowners to
go, there are no new parks being built, and the only affordable
land available would be outside the UGBs.
“If they don’t accept my idea of allowing manufactured home
parks outside the UGBs, what’s their idea? For low- and
middle-income people living in these parks, with the increased
assessed valuations, the owners have to increase monthly
rates—it’s a hardship on all of these folks.”
In Bob’s district, he’s not seeing as many park closures as
are hitting Western Washington. But that hasn’t prevented him
from trying to come up with solutions. “Right now, if we want to
plan for the future—we have no plans,” he asserts. “People on
fixed incomes in these parks are in a terrible dilemma. They
need help. We’re creating homelessness if we don’t address this
problem. The GMA has been in effect for 17 years. You can
imagine the pressures on land within those UGBs.”
Promising developments in Wenatchee
The Ninth Street Mobile Home Park sits in an attractive part
of Wenatchee, between the railroad and the Columbia River.
There’s a foot trail nearby that runs along the river. “It’s a
pretty spot,” says resident Teresa Zepeda, who has lived there
for four years with her family. The setting is so attractive, in
fact, that park owner Kamkon Development plans to replace it
with hundreds of condos. But there’s a big silver lining to this
story of displacement: Kamkon has voluntarily offered to create
a new park elsewhere, so that the homeowners of Ninth Street
will have a place to live.
Patrick Pleas, an attorney with the Wenatchee office of
NW
Justice Project who is working with the Ninth Street residents,
believes that Kamkon’s willingness to work towards a fair
solution has helped set in motion a changed attitude in his
community towards the plight of low-income people in need of
affordable housing. Nearly 90% of the residents of this park,
for example, qualify as either extremely low or very low income
for Chelan County; 68% are Hispanic/Latino and 20% are seniors.
Patrick Pleas
NW Justice Project
“The time frame for nonprofit development is three or four years
out. Common Ground and CTED really understand this. They see the
potential for Ninth Street as a model—as a solution for park
closures. We’re really excited about this.”
In Wenatchee, “we are primarily a blue-collar, low-wage
worker community,” he says. “We’re not at the same level as the
west side of the Cascades in terms of housing prices. But we’ve
watched our housing prices grow 20% this past year. It’s
affecting all levels of housing.” Patrick points to Wenatchee’s
1% vacancy rate for apartments; a year ago, it was 4%. In the
Wenatchee Valley, approximately 50% of renters currently lack
affordable housing.
“The shortage of affordable housing is increasing; there’s
this burgeoning gap. At the same time, manufactured housing
communities are under this threat of development. We anticipate
that it will only get worse. One or two more are rumored to be
closing,” he says.
The good news is that many people are taking notice—and
taking action. After Kamkon bought a replacement property for
the Ninth Street residents on Okanogan Street, some of the
neighbors living near the new site organized to protest the
opening of the park. Other neighbors, however, were appalled at
this lack of compassion. “Some church folks lived in that
neighborhood,” Patrick says. “I got a letter from Les Krober,
minister of the Wenatchee Free Methodist Church. He said, ‘As
Christians, we have a responsibility to shelter our brothers and
sisters. We’d like to support the Ninth Street residents: How
can we help?’”
That’s how the
Just Housing Coalition got its start last
year. The parishioners of many local churches, side by side with
Ninth Street homeowners, are taking part. “We started from an
ice cream social, and it’s grown from there,” says Patrick. The
group has gotten involved in other local issues, including a
farmworker housing development that’s being opposed by its
neighbors in another part of Wenatchee. “The Coalition is a
direct result of the Ninth Street closure and it’s going to have
a very positive effect on our community.” The group is now
looking at buying land to hold it in trust for affordable future
use—“to be the speculators,” says Patrick.
Meanwhile, Kamkon is in the process of securing a second site
for the Ninth Street residents. However, the company isn’t
making promises for long-term affordability, and Patrick has
been working with other organizations in planning for a
transition to have a nonprofit ultimately purchase and run the
park.
Statewide nonprofit housing developer Common Ground is
contributing to the conversation, as is CTED and the Wenatchee
Housing Authority (WHA). Also providing advice is Doug Hobkirk,
executive director of MHCP. Patrick received word in March that
Common Ground would like to use Ninth Street as a demonstration
project for how a for-profit park can successfully transition to
nonprofit ownership.
A change in attitude
Patrick has learned from experience that if you don’t have
the developer on your side, you can’t preserve the housing: “You
just don’t have the time to do it,” he states. “The time frame
for nonprofit development is three or four years out. Common
Ground and CTED really understand this. They see the potential
for Ninth Street as a model—as a solution for park closures.
We’re really excited about this.”
He’s seen a change in attitude toward manufactured housing
communities from the state on down to the local level. In 2001,
a situation similar to Ninth Street occurred with a park that
had faced closure in Wenatchee. It was purchased with farmworker
housing money from the HTF and operated by WHA—but was
ultimately closed down in 2004. At the time, he says, the
thinking was that using public money to preserve older-model
manufactured homes and save a park was “throwing good money
after bad. But people have gained more insight into how mobile
home park housing works—the people who live there and how they
benefit from it,” Patrick stresses.
“This is the largest source of unsubsidized housing for
low-income folks in the state. These are not stagnant
communities. They work in multiple layers, providing affordable
housing, plus long-term opportunities for younger homeowners.
We’re going to need to use some public funds to preserve these
parks. There’s no doubt about it. But it truly is good money
thrown after good.”
PRESERVATION EFFORTS
| KEYS TO
SUCCESS |
TWO PERSONAL STORIES |
anufactured
housing communities—known by many as mobile home parks—are one
of the largest sources of unsubsidized affordable housing in
Washington State. Manufactured homes provide affordable housing
for about 500,000 people, or approximately 8% of our residents,
many of them elderly. But this great affordable housing choice
has become a crisis in our state. Communities are closing at an
alarming rate—particularly in areas where the squeeze is on in
terms of available land for commercial development. 
