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No way out and no one to help.     

That’s what hundreds of residents in Macomb County mobile home parks are saying about their current living conditions.

Tom Orlando and Christine Valentik were relieved and hopeful when they found a home in Chesterfield Township’s Fairchild Lake Community for $800.

Tom figured they could do the work that needed to be done, live in it long enough to build up their credit and sell it for the down payment on a small house. Both of them were previous homeowners but lost everything they had in difficult divorce settlements. 

When they purchased the mobile home and signed a lease, their rent for the lot was $490. Since then rent and services fees have nearly doubled leaving them no savings for a future home of their own. 

The same is true of Debbie Proszkowski.

She was in a vulnerable state after losing her home to foreclosure and saw Fairchild Lake as an affordable place to live while recuperating financially and emotionally. It cost her more than she anticipated, being they asked for three months rent in advance rather than two because of her credit score. 

“When I moved in my rent was $699,” said Proszkowski, which she didn’t mind paying since it was a nice park with good neighbors and well kept yards. “During COVID, my park along with three or four others in the area were bought by YES! Communities. Since then, the rent has gone up to $1,050 and the quality of the park has gone down.”

Jessica Reese had a yearly lease at Fairchild Lake. Now it’s a monthly lease and her rent has gone from $1,100 a month to $1,575.78. Plus, instead of paying $24 for water and $23 for sewage, she’s now paying $78 and $62.

Fairchild Lake Community is one of several mobile home parks that were purchased by YES! Communities. One of the nation’s largest owners and operators of mobile home communities, YES!, owned by Stockbridge Capital Group LLC., a San Francisco-based global institutional investment group, has 60 mobile home parks in Michigan.

Neither responded to requests for comment.

Housing costs are rising across the country, both in homes and rent , but until the recent housing crisis, mobile home parks were an affordable housing option for lower-income residents, seniors on fixed incomes, young couples building their life and credit scores, students, and people on disabilities. 

“They’re preying on the less fortunate,” Orlando said. “These are all people in bad or difficult situations financially.” 

The plight of residents in Fairview Lake is playing out across southeast Michigan and even nationwide as institutional investors, led by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts, swoop in to buy mobile home parks as opportunities for profits. A recent Facebook post asking residents to share their experience yielded hundreds of comments. Below are just a few of the posts:    

Michigan needs to follow Florida’s example of protecting these homes. Investors can’t take advantage of a situation and exploit the residents as they do now. In Florida people are allowed to purchase the small plot of land they live on and can form a community that pays dues to the community, for the benefit of the community, to maintain clubhouses or pools or whatever the members vote to do. It’s a wonderful way! But the government must lay down the right law to make it happen — Diane Boose

This is a state wide problem not just in Macomb County.!! — Patty Girardi

I have lived in Rudgate Mobile Home Community for 19 years. Sun Communities took over and our rent has gone up over $250 and services are reduced. Sun is not about the residents, they are about the profit. Mobile Home living was supposed to be affordable, now with all these new companies buying up the parks, the rent is outrageous. Lots of people are stuck due to not being able to buy a house in this market — Nancy Goodchild

I have lived at my complex for 17 years. Lot rent was $418 a month. We did have increases – and in three years I was paying $434 a month. When Sun took over about two years ago my rent (went) up to $564 a month — Melissa Guertin

Rugate has the water tied in with the rent. If there’s a problem with the water bill, we are forced to pay it upfront and dispute it later otherwise they report us late and take us to court — Crystal Wright

I live in Camelot Villa Mobile Home Park and in the entire park, residents are complaining about constant rent lot increases, and petty inspection write-ups, ripping people off — Loretta Kosalsky

Steven Crothers, a civilian tech contractor for the United States Air Force and former resident of Fairchild Lake, said it’s not just high rent that residents of mobile home parks are facing. 

“When I purchased my home, I purchased it brand new from the community management. They toured the home. They wrote up the sales agreement, and more. One of the ways these predatory parks trap you into their rising rent is by refusing to assist you in selling your home after you purchase it,” said Crothers, who was living in St. Clair but after getting a job at the Department of Defense in Detroit had to find a place closer to work and saw the mobile home park as an affordable solution until a more suitable home could be found.

At the very least he expected the park to include it on the website listing of available units and assist in finding a potential buyer but no assistance was offered.

“Park management also requires that in order for me to sell my home, the buyer must independently apply for their own mortgage and they can’t use the same one he went through because they (21st Mortgage) only deal with park management,” he said. “That narrows the window for potential buyers, who are basically left to come up with $56,000 in cash.

“Ultimately, I’ll be stuck with this trailer indefinitely,” said Carrothers, who has managed to sublet the home. “I’ve been pushed into being a landlord by the park on their behalf and to their benefit.”

Meanwhile rent is rising while services and improvements to the park have stalled.

Orlando and Valentik will attest to that.

For months they have been trying to get the park to do something about their water pressure. The park has been inundated with racoons and cats tearing up skirtings on the trailer but that’s a whole other issue. 

“The township has been out and said our pressure should be at least 33 pounds per square inch (PSI) and we are at 22 (PSI),” said Valetik, noting it makes life unbearable for the family of five including three teenagers. 

“You can’t flush the toilet if the dishwasher is running,” Orlando said.  

The low water pressure at Fairchild Lake was confirmed by Chesterfield Township Director of Public Works Mitch O’Connor and a meter utility crew leader.

“We met with the property owners a month ago,” O’Connor said. “It was at 22 (PSI).”

However, the township does not have jurisdiction over the mobile home park and while the water pressure leading up to the park is over 40 (PSI) once it goes through the meter it’s the responsibility of the operators.

They would need to report the problem to the contractor who oversees waste and water operations for the mobile home park, which in this case is one of two companies including Highland Treatment.

Mitchell Dawson, who works at Highland Treatment, said once they receive a complaint they will send out a crew to check the pressure, determine the problem might and discuss a solution with the park. 

Nobody from the park called.

According to MHVillage.com , a Grand Rapids-based online marketplace for buying and selling manufactured homes, there are over 1,200 mobile home parks with 248,000 homes in Michigan. In Macomb County there are 46 parks and over 13,000 homes, according to the most recent federal data . 

Neighboring Oakland County has 68 parks with nearly 16,000 homes.

John Lindley, president and CEO of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association, representing the industry in Michigan, said the great majority of mobile home park communities are well operated. And when it comes to investor groups buying mobile home parks and implementing outsized lot rent increases, Lindley said those are isolated incidents and not common practices.

“The Michigan Manufactured Housing Association condemns the practices of a few bad actors, but it is important to note that the evidence is clear they are outliers,” he said. “The notion of big national companies buying up communities and broadly imposing huge rent increases runs against the fact that doing so is a bad business model, and furthermore is not supported by broad market observations.”

He said investors are consistently using their money to make community improvements to enhance the short- and long-term value of mobile home communities, including amenities, streets, walkways, street lighting, and water and sewer lines.

Those in the industry also argue that mobile home communities are still the most affordable housing option, noting average rent increases across parks nationwide were just over 4% in 2021, while spending on improvements was around 11%.

Still, there are 4 million mobile home parks in the U.S. and at least 20%, or around 800,000 have been purchased by institutional investors such as hedge funds, pension funds and banks, and very often they are shifting the cost of services onto residents including trash collection and internet, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (LILP) .

George McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a non-profit, private organization that seeks to improve quality of life through the effective use, taxation, and stewardship of land described the behavior of investor groups buying up mobile home parks as predatory and egregious.

“They’re deferring maintenance and basically milking the parks for the cash flow that they can get,” he said. “Based on our research, mobile home parks are one of the top three leading returns in real estate investment trusts over the last five years. I think it’s almost unconscionable that these kinds of bottom feeder investors are buying up the parks just to make a quick buck.”

McCarthy said it’s a crisis that’s been unfolding for at least a decade or more. 

“We have to take some kind of proactive action to prevent capital markets from stealing away necessary shelter from families,” he said.

Advocates say part of the problem stems from state laws for mobile home parks not being updated since 1987. The current ones have left a vacuum for corporate owners and private equity firms to buy parks and raise rents.

The Mobile Home Commission Act of 1987 provides little protection for mobile home park residents for upward rent control and very few limits on investors or licensing and leasing requirements.

Jim Schaafsma, a housing support attorney with the Michigan Poverty Law Program, said the state Legislature needs to create limits for rent increases and fees.

“One reality that differentiates mobile home park residents from other rental tenants is that these residents who own their homes are more stranded,” he said. “The nearly prohibitive cost for them to move a home ($1,500 and up) means that they have nowhere to go. There is a huge barrier to moving out, so tenants will accept pretty much whatever the owners raise the rents to.”

Last year, a package of legislation was introduced to update the 1987 state law and regulate investors. It includes fixing issues regarding titles to abandoned homes in mobile home parks, altering lease agreements, and revising licensing requirements for owners.

The bills passed the House 97-10 with bipartisan support. 

However, negotiations stalled in the Senate after the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association pulled its support after working on it with stakeholders, including investors such as YES! Communities.

According to a report by The Associated Press, residents of a mobile home park in upstate New York, formed an association after a third increase in their rent was imposed upon residents, about half of whom are seniors or disabled people on fixed incomes, and launched a rent strike.

Their efforts were met with about 30 eviction notices.

“I can no longer afford to live my dream of home ownership,” said a Facebook post by Anne Podina, a resident of Rudgate Clinton . “I had a bad past of bad decisions and horrible choices. I lost everything and was about to be homeless, when I got approved for a mobile home. I worked by butt off and finally got my own home, a car, and a sprinkler. Now I’m facing the possibility of losing everything all over again.

The constant rent increases on top of a mortgage and rising prices on gas, groceries and car insurance.

“It’s all too much,” said Podina, who works at a senior living facility that does not pay a lot.

Oakland Press Staff Writer Mark Cavitt contributed to this report

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