Wisconsin’s forgotten homes: Takeaways from investigating manufactured housing

Last winter, I got an intriguing story tip: Many Wisconsin manufactured home communities were operating with expired licenses. 

I didn’t initially know much about these communities, often called mobile home parks, where residents own their homes but rent the land they sit on. I quickly learned they provide a critical source of affordable housing in Wisconsin and beyond — the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. 

Housing experts and advocates told me private equity’s growing interest in the model threatens to change that. My reporting found that Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for owners. Still, some residents and groups see pathways for safe, affordable manufactured home ownership as a solution during an affordability crisis.    ...more

Ken Notes: We should recreate the statutes that govern both the old mobile home parks and newer options for denser lots allowing for manufactured homes. Also the practice of buying parks and then ignoring the tenants and using the income as a cash cow is the newest form of slumlords and we allow it to happen.