Mobile home parks offer protection to many people seeking low costs, but cannot eliminate the risk

This story originally broadcast on “Marketplace” on August 6th.

In their 17 years at Boulder Meadows mobile home park, Miriam De Santiago and Bernardo Padilla have become accustomed to the stresses of living in Boulder, one of Colorado’s least affordable cities.

“They raise rent, they raise food prices, but our wages stay the same,” De Santiago said in Spanish.

The couple raised their two children in this Boulder trailer park, facing many challenges: working multiple jobs, dealing with rising rents on their property and, De Santiago said, their landlord threatening to evict them over a rent dispute.

Despite being unhappy with the management, their mobile home has allowed the couple to stay in Boulder as real estate prices have skyrocketed in recent years. They bought the house for just $28,000 and pay $900 a month to rent the property, less than half the average price for a one-bedroom apartment, according to Zillow.

And although the couple considered buying a larger home outside of Boulder, they’ve stayed because the city provides the resources their autistic son needs. Through their work, which includes cleaning expensive homes, they witness the housing disparities in Boulder. They also volunteer with the nonprofit 9to5 Colorado, helping other Spanish-speaking trailer park residents learn about their rights as renters.

“RVs are the first choice for affordable housing,” Luz Galicia, a 9to5 Colorado organizer, said in Spanish. “The majority of people we know work from 7 a.m., finish their shift at 5 p.m., and (afterward) take a part-time job to cover their expenses.”

These low-wage workers often care for multiple children and may not have work permits due to their immigration status.

Even in Boulder, where people can fight evictions and protect mobile home parks from new development, legal protections have their limits—and residents need to know what rights they have under their lease and how an eviction process should work.

For mobile home residents, evictions could have particularly devastating consequences, says David Valleau, an attorney with the Colorado Poverty Law Project, because mobile homes are considered private property.

“When the sheriff comes to conduct the lockout, any personal property left in the rental unit or rental space is considered abandoned,” he said. “Even if the homeowner has a title to the home, ownership of the home, if the sheriff conducts a lockout, he will be locked out of his mobile home if he has not moved the home, and he will eventually lose title to that property.”

Colorado has increased protections for these residents – so they have more options to respond to eviction threats, rent increases and poor conditions. Despite this, Colorado Governor Jared Polis refused to sign a bill to limit rent increases for sites. Valleau says this is the biggest challenge for mobile home park residents, especially when a new owner buys out a park.

“I’ve seen new owners come in and raise rents by as much as 50 percent,” Valleau said.

Across the state, many Coloradans have been forced to leave their homes over the years because they couldn’t afford to pay. They face rising housing costs as more people work from home, which has allowed wealthier families to move to the state. In Boulder, many people were forced to move further away from their communities and jobs.

According to Kurt Firnhaber, Boulder’s housing and social services director, about 60,000 people commute to the small town because so few can afford to live there.

“Not only are more people commuting, they are also traveling longer distances,” he said.

Mobile home parks can be a haven for people seeking affordable housing, but they are not immune to rent increases, evictions and rising property prices.

To provide high-quality housing for low- and middle-income residents, the city is launching a new project: its own factory, where construction of prefabricated houses will begin this year.

Elizabeth Trovall/Marketplace

“In the first year to 18 months, we expect to build 12 houses per year,” said Firnhaber. “And then we want to double that after about two years.”

The factory – a partnership with Habitat for Humanity – is designed to make home ownership easier.

“If we were to sell these homes on the open market in Boulder, they would be million-dollar homes. And they would cost between $280,000 and $380,000, depending on the household,” Firnhaber said.

New owners are not allowed to resell the homes above a certain value, so they remain relatively affordable. And current trailer park residents in old units can buy these homes even cheaper thanks to city subsidies.

“We actually offer them prices they can afford,” he said.

It’s a big investment—the factory alone cost $11 million. But it’s cheaper to build homes this way, which is why policy analysts like Daniel Pang of the Urban Institute see these plants as a way to solve the affordable housing crisis.

“You can buy a lot of the material you need to build these houses and properties wholesale and have a kind of standardization, almost like a car production line where a lot of the parts are very similar in all the different designs. … (That) definitely brings the costs down a lot,” Pang said.

Elizabeth Trovall/Marketplace

According to the Census Bureau, the average cost per square foot of a new manufactured home is about half the cost of a site-built home (excluding land). That’s likely why manufactured home shipments have increased nationwide, reaching nearly 90,000 in 2023. And, according to data from the Manufactured Housing Institute and the Urban Institute, there are more manufactured home factories today than there were just a few years ago.

“We believe that the housing shortage we are seeing could certainly be alleviated by creating an additional 70,000 homes per year, or another 700,000 over the next decade,” Pang said.

While it’s not a panacea, producing more manufactured homes and protecting trailer park residents is one way to address a major economic challenge facing the country.