Halfway Homeowners: Eviction and Forced Relocation in a Florida Manufactured Home Park

Abstract

The last four decades of US housing policy have seen a shift from the federal allocation of affordable housing as a public good to the neoliberal model of private and for‐profit provision of affordable housing. This shift warrants a study of the link between the interests that now shape low‐income housing markets and the stability of the housing they provide. Nowhere are the effects of this shift more evident than in the homes of the 20 million Americans living in manufactured housing, which is installed largely on the private lands of for‐profit developers who can close mobile home parks and force residents to move themselves and their homes with as little as 30 days' notice. This ethnography of mass eviction in a Florida mobile home park examines state regulations intended to protect residents of closing parks and analyzes how private interests shape the implementation of these policies.

Factors affecting mobile home prevalence in the United States: Poverty, natural amenities, and employment in natural resources

“…There is much research looking at the interaction between housing policy, community housing stock, and mobile homes. This research has emphasised the affordability of mobile homes and the need for policies to help ease the financial and legal burden associated with mobile home ownership (Aman & Yarnal, ; Sullivan, ; Sullivan, ). Further, mobile homes have been documented as prevalent in fast growing communities (Geisler & Mitsuda, ).…”

“…There has been a nationwide trend towards devolution of the responsibility to enforce, or provide, tenant rights, specifically in the case of mobile homeowners, from state governments to local governments in the United States. Local governments are much more likely to get rid of tenant rights to encourage new development, which further increases the burden on those living in mobile homes (Sullivan, ). Further, mobile home residents are systemically susceptible to predatory or unfavourable loans, which limits financial opportunities (MacTavish, Eley, & Salamon, ).…”

“…Mobile homes are more likely to be prevalent in floodplains, which is both an environmental risk and a financial risk (Shen, ). The disapproval of mobile homes has led to the removal of mobile home communities in many areas, often as part of broader redevelopment plans, resulting in gentrification (Neupert, ; Sullivan, ; Sullivan, ).…”

This Land is My Land: Absence and Ruination in the American Dream of (Mobile) Homeownership

“…MHC demolitions have accelerated throughout the US and Canada since the 1980s (Salamon and MacTavish ), eliminating countless unsubsidized housing units despite the growing affordable housing crisis. As “half‐way homeowners” (Sullivan ), mobile‐homeowners have little recourse to protest park sale or redevelopment. However, public hearings grant MHC residents the opportunity to have their voices heard and, importantly, establish an official testimonial record.…”

“…Prohibited from landownership due to their housing type, the categorical exclusion of mobile‐homeowners living in mobile home communities (MHCs) from conventional definitions of “home” ownership reinforces their second‐class status as quasi‐homeowners. Further compounding mobile‐homeowners’ housing precarity are restrictive zoning ordinances, common in most American cities, that spatially segregate manufactured homes within land‐lease MHCs under single, often corporate, ownership (Chernoff ; Sullivan ). Such legal arrangements grant private landlords, the “park” operators, “quasi‐governmental power” over resident‐owners (Miller and Evko , 702).…”