The housing crisis hits mobile homes
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
Today on Post Reports, how rising prices at mobile home parks may destabilize the entire housing market. Plus, climate change is forcing schools to close early for “heat days.”
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America’s housing crisis is trickling down to mobile home parks. Mobile homes have traditionally been the country’s biggest source of affordable housing: 20 million Americans live in manufactured homes. Most mobile home park residents own their houses and rent the land underneath. But now, mobile home parks are doubling or even tripling their rent across the country.
Economics reporter Abha Bhattarai explains how high demand, low inventory and a rise in corporate ownership threaten the affordability of mobile homes.
Plus later in the show, national education reporter Laura Meckler discusses how schools in many parts of the country are closing because of excessive heat fueled by climate change. “Heat days” pose a threat to students’ health and academic success, Meckler explains, adding, “This is a problem that people recognize but is just a lot easier to identify than it is to solve.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So Sue Veele lives in Rochester, New Hampshire. |
| 0:06.2 | My home is a double wide 2003 home. |
| 0:11.5 | It has skylights throughout. |
| 0:14.2 | It's got a nice open floor plan. |
| 0:16.7 | Anyone walking into my house would probably not realize it's a mobile home. |
| 0:22.9 | It's just a house. |
| 0:26.1 | She spent about $120,000. |
| 0:28.6 | She sold her previous house and decided this would be a good investment, a good place |
| 0:31.7 | to write out her retirement. |
| 0:33.9 | But rent prices have risen 50% since she moved in six years ago. |
| 0:38.2 | And she's saying that a lot of her neighbors are feeling the pinch as well. |
| 0:42.6 | That's economics reporter Abba Bhattarai. |
| 0:47.4 | And she says that Sue's story is part of a growing trend across the US for people living |
| 0:51.8 | in mobile homes, rising prices with nowhere to go. |
| 0:56.2 | She isn't sure what to do. |
| 0:57.8 | She can cover rent right now, but she isn't sure how much longer that's going to be sustainable. |
| 1:04.4 | And all around her people are starting to put their mobile homes up for sale. |
| 1:08.6 | Some of my neighbors are very, very upset and worried because their limited income is running |
| 1:15.1 | out. |
| 1:16.1 | And I feel emotionally upset when I think about what my next step needs to be, might need |
| 1:23.6 | to be, whether I can afford to live here next year or the year after. |
| 1:29.7 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
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