Programs provide assistance for repairing or replacing manufactured housing
By Tim Rowland
Energy costs are a consideration for Adirondack housing agencies, because a dollar saved on heat is a dollar that can be spent on the home itself. People with lower incomes in particular have had to resort to drafty old houses or mobile homes — meaning energy costs are highest for the people who can least afford to pay.
The mobile homes of old “were never intended to be permanent housing, but they’ve become permanent for a large swath of people in the Adirondacks,” said Nicole Justice Green, executive director of PRIDE of Ticonderoga, a housing and community development agency serving the eastern Adirondacks.
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Ten percent of Adirondack housing is manufactured compared with 2% for the rest of the state, and despite minimum federal building standards that were adopted in 1976 (the year the government stopped calling them mobile homes and started categorizing them as manufactured housing), much of this inventory is in poor shape. “Some of them are death traps — scary places with hazardous living conditions,” Green said.
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PRIDE and Adirondack Roots participate in government programs that replace dilapidated mobile homes for free with modern, energy efficient units. Modular or stick-built homes are still preferable because they appreciate in value and build wealth for the owner, Green said. And because they have typically served a vulnerable population, mobile home dwellers have been pray for sketchy financing schemes (because they depreciate in value like a car, mobile homes cannot be financed with a traditional mortgage) and unscrupulous lot owners who can raise the rent knowing that the homes are prohibitively expensive to move.
Still, Green said, manufactured homes represent “one of the last vestiges of affordable housing” in the Adirondacks.” The quality of these homes has markedly improved, and for the first time the State of New York Mortgage Industry is offering fixed-rate mortgages to manufactured housing.
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As the prices of stick-built, or even modulars remain out of reach for many Adirondack workers, today’s modern take on the mobile home of old is a viable option.
“The new ones are really efficient and they are nice, quality housing,” Murphy said. “So we see this as an important part of improving the quality of housing in our region. We’re not going to be able to afford to replace them all with a stick built or modular home. So for us, that’s a really good option.”
Photo at top courtesy of Adirondack Roots
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The promise of modular homes
A potential piece of the housing puzzle, but can the Adirondacks attract manufacturers?
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I wish there was a program here in Arizona that would make it easier to get the help for older people. It’s a challenge when you have a house on a property that you don’t own to get help. It would benefit all who own a mobile home if they had the opportunity to own the land the house is on.
There is an organization in Arizona. We are called AAMHO-Arizona Association of Mobile Home Owners. We are your advocates for everything mobile homes. We work with ASU, Wildfire, Southwest Fair Housing Council, and more great agencies to help Mobile Home Owners on rented land. AAMHO.org
It would be helpful if you could provide any more specific information about programs that may help owners of manufactured housing who are in need of assistance with updates, repairs etc. — for example, where a person might look, what the names of programs might be, or what agencies might be involved.