Mobile home residents sometimes get questions like “do you have running water?” or “how do you flush the toilet?” But inside the Boston Trailer Park - the only mobile home park in Boston, Massachusetts - one resident offers a tour of spacious home with a remodeled kitchen and full washer/dryer. Not only does it have running water, but it's also the only place in the city the resident says she could afford to live.

Twenty-two million Americans live in mobile homes — once known as “trailers,” a vestige of the days when the homes were all on wheels. These days they're also known as manufactured housing. They are one of the most affordable forms of housing in the country. The communities
used to be mostly family owned, but in recent years they’ve been snapped up by investors eager for a steady cash flow.

Most residents own their homes, but not the land under them. They pay rent for the land and for things like water, sewer and road repairs. When investors buy mobile home parks – also known as manufactured housing communities – they may bring capital to improve parks. But critics say they raise rents and make the parks unaffordable for low-income residents.

There’s a growing movement in the US to help mobile owners buy their parks and keep them affordable. Halifax Estates, in Halifax, Massachusetts is the largest resident-owned mobile home park in the country. Resident Deborah Winiewicz who helped fend off investors there, is now an advocate for mobile homeowners in New England working with ROC USA (Resident Owned Communities). ROC USA and the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI) work with residents to get funding to buy their parks.

In this video we see residents of Greentree Estates in West Wareham, Massachusetts vote for board members of their resident cooperative. They are working to match an investor's offer. But investor interest in the mobile home market has driven up prices, and it is getting tougher for residents to put together the loans and funding they need to compete.

Former Boston Mayor Tom Menino helped Boston Trailer Park residents buy their park so it would remain an affordable form of housing. A decade later, the median home price in Boston has more than doubled. In a sign of the times, there's a new apartment complex next door the Boston Trailer Park. Rents for a one-bedroom unit there are close to $3,000 a month.
You can follow this story's reporter on Twitter: @lizneisloss and IG : @lneisloss


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0:00 Mobile home stereotypes
0:34 The largest resident-owned mobile home park
0:54 An affordable housing solution
1:27 Investors love mobile homes
1:51 Residents fighting back