No landlord: Mobile home community finds stability in self-government
One sunny, cold morning last January, John Egan joined fellow mobile home park residents on a neighbor’s front porch. They needed to organize. But how?
“I had to go to the restroom, and when I came back from the restroom, they said, ‘Hi! You’re president!’” recalls Mr. Egan.
The half-dozen folks had convened to think through how to buy their Durango, Colorado, park from the private landlord – a move Mr. Egan and others deemed a shot in the dark. But now they at least had a president for what would become an interim board. With guidance from a housing nonprofit and majority support from the community, residents succeeded in purchasing the roughly 15-acre property within five months. They celebrated with a picnic, as the new Animas View MHP Co-op joined some thousand other resident-owned communities countrywide.
Their achievement is unusual. The resident-owned constitutes just 2.4% of manufactured housing communities nationwide. Bolstering the health and longevity
