Jinny Curtiss' home is beautiful. It has cream siding with forest green trim around the windows. Inside, songbird knickknacks perch atop a vintage wooden hutch that separates the kitchen from a tidy, cozy living room.
Curtiss keeps a small garden fountain outside and changes the flowers around it every spring. One year they're red and yellow, another year blue and purple, another year completely pink for breast cancer awareness.
The 82-year-old was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020. That was 13 years after she moved here. She's always planned to die here, too.
"Take me out of here in a box," she says.
But now, that might not be possible.
Like many mobile home residents, Curtiss owns her home, but she doesn't own the land underneath it. She lives in Bona Vista, a community in Otis Orchards. She's rented the 14-by-70-foot lot where her home sits since 2007.
When Curtiss first moved in, her lot rent was $300 a month. For more than a decade, it barely increased. But in the past five years, rent in manufactured home communities have been catching up with the rest of the housing market. Curtiss' rent is set to hit $875 per month this spring.
Curtiss is on a fixed income of about $2,000 a month, thanks to Social Security and a regular check from Labor & Industries due to a fall she suffered when working as a caretaker. She's currently paying $635 a month for her lot, but in September she received notice of the $240 increase set to take effect on her anniversary date in May.
"I don't have a clue yet what I'm gonna do," she says.
Even though Curtiss has paid off her house, the most recent rent increase means that she would be spending nearly half her income to stay in her own home. There's no guarantee it won't keep going up. She says she can't afford to keep living at the park, but she also doesn't know where she could afford to live if she decided to get rid of her home.
"Can't afford to pay," Curtiss says. "Can't afford to sell. I feel trapped."
Her case is not the exception. It's the rule.
More than half of all renters in Washington are rent-burdened, meaning their housing costs are more than the recommended 30% of their income, according to the state Department of Commerce.
According to the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, about 47% of renters received a rent increase of $100 or more per month in the last year. Eviction filings last year in Spokane County were about double what they were in 2019, according to the Eviction Research Network out of the University of California, Berkeley.
Mobile or manufactured homes used to be one of the cheapest options for someone looking for a stable living situation. But now, mobile home parks across the country are facing unprecedented rent increases. Manufactured homes themselves are skyrocketing in value.
There aren't enough affordable options to fill the gap left by these upwardly-mobile mobile homes.
Lot rents are increasing mostly because of a "frenzy of investment" in manufactured housing communities during COVID, says Victoria O'Banion, an affordable housing expert at Northwest Cooperative Development Center. The center is a nonprofit that, among other things, helps manufactured home owners in the region work together. Increased prices are also a response to increased demand from homebuyers, signaling a destigmatization of communities that O'Banion says have been "otherized" in the past.
But parks that are privately owned also put residents and their greatest financial assets at risk.
"It really puts people in a position where they're not able to negotiate in a normal sense," says Denver Mickali, a mobile home owner in Pullman. "If they were a renter, they could just move to another apartment. But we can't. These are our homes, but we can't move them."
A rent stabilization bill is currently making the rounds again in the Washington Legislature. It aims to limit rent increases to 7% or less per year. Similar bills failed in 2023 and 2024.
Yet affordable housing advocates did celebrate a legislative win recently. Thanks to an update to state code in 2023, mobile home park owners must notify park residents if they intend to sell the land. Now, homeowners in the community get the chance to make an offer to buy it for themselves.
If they choose to do so, residents can form a cooperative to pool resources, buy the community where they live and control their own rent. So far, there are nearly 30 resident-owned manufactured housing communities in Washington out of about 1,200 parks statewide. The most recent cooperative is set to close its purchase deal this February just outside Spokane.
"In commercial banking, they talk a lot about 'We want to help with affordable housing, so let's build apartment complexes,'" says Tina McKinstry, a member of Takesa Village, a resident-owned mobile home park in Mead. "You're making a landlord rich. You're not making the people rich. With [co-ops], you're making the people rich."
MOBILE, MANUFACTURED, MISJUDGED
McKinstry bought her four-bedroom manufactured home for $25,000 in 2015. She had never considered a manufactured home before. But she hated living in apartments and was shocked to find anything with that much space for that small a price tag.
So she maxed out her credit cards to quickly pay the full amount. A banker by trade, she assumed she could get a line of home equity credit to swap out the credit card debt for a lower interest loan.
What McKinstry didn't know is that manufactured homes aren't usually eligible for home equity loans. Manufactured homes, often called mobile homes, aren't considered "real property" by most banks. They're titled like a car, not a house, and therefore not eligible for traditional home financing.
This thinking is a holdover from mobile homes built before 1976.
"Prior to that, you can see some really funky [mobile] homes being built," housing expert O'Banion says. "Google search it, and you can see, like, people driving around with three stories on the back of a camper. It gets really crazy. It was unregulated prior to 1976 and probably not a great idea."
So nearly five decades ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, set strict regulations for mobile homes concerning things like fire safety, natural disaster readiness, and energy efficiency, plus requirements for the factories where they're made. Technically, anything built before '76 is a "mobile" home, but anything built after '76 is a "manufactured" home.
Even though manufactured home is usually the proper term for homes that residents live in today, mobile home is still a popular term among renters and parks. Most people use them interchangeably, in part because "manufactured" doesn't seem very specific.
"I really don't like that we use the word 'manufactured homes,' because everything is manufactured," O'Banion says. "Manufactured just means to be built, right?"
Factory-built houses still sometimes get a bad rap, but McKinstry doesn't know why. Her home is probably more up to code than most 100-year-old craftsman homes, she says, and she's relieved its steel frame was put together in a climate-controlled space.
"I'm not living in a metal can with a propane heater plugged into the back and my hose for water," she says. "But with that stigma, nobody really acknowledges them as homes. But my home wasn't built in the rain, and my wood wasn't exposed to the rain while it was in the process of being built."
Despite the common moniker, manufactured homes built after 1976 are not much more mobile than stick-built houses. Once a manufactured home is delivered to a lot, it must have all wheels and axles removed before it's placed on a permanent foundation. Sure, you can raise it again and roll it off a lot, but you can also do the same thing to a small stick-built house, McKinstry says.
But the stereotype of homes on wheels has prevailed. For a long time, banks wouldn't give loans for manufactured homes, McKinstry says, which opened the market up to unsavory lenders.
"Predatory individuals fill the gap where decent businesses fail," she says.
Since the 1970s, manufactured housing communities have typically been owned by large investor owners.
"They've been a quiet secret of a quick cash cow for investors," O'Banion says. "They've been very quiet about it, and they historically have not really publicized it."
Society and city planners have also ostracized these communities as substandard housing, she says. They've built walls — both literally and figuratively — around mobile home parks.
In the early 2000s, a few books and investment courses started popping up drawing attention to investing in manufactured housing communities. But it wasn't until COVID-19, and the eviction pauses that came with the pandemic, that the frenzy really started.
"You have investors who invested in multifamily apartment housing who quickly saw a decline on their return of investment — because residents stopped paying their rent because of moratoriums," O'Banion says.
Residents in manufactured housing communities typically continued to pay their lot rent regardless of the moratoriums, O'Banion says.
"They knew there was going to be a point where that money would be owed, and those residents could not afford to lose their home — that is their single greatest asset," she says. "Whereas in apartment buildings, [people might say,] 'Fine, kick me out of the apartment,'" because they don't own it.
Competition to buy manufactured housing communities took off. By the end of 2020, O'Banion and her colleagues started seeing parks being sold left and right, sight unseen, sometimes for a million dollars over the asking price.
But in order for those investors to see a return on their investment, they need to sell it for more than what they bought it for, she says. Thus commenced beautification projects, infrastructure updates and lot rent increases, since much of an assessor's appraisal depends on how much money a park makes.
"What that did was permanently alter the value of manufactured housing communities," O'Banion says.
LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS
Bona Vista in Otis Orchards is operated by Three Pillars Community, an investment company out of California that also owns 10 other mobile home parks in Washington and more than 75 manufactured housing communities across the U.S.
Long-distance ownership was a shock for Curtiss and others, who were emotionally attached to the former longtime owner and property manager before he died in 2016. Since Bona Vista was sold to Three Pillars soon after, there have been eight property managers in eight years, Curtiss says.
Investor owners often get a bad reputation for being distant and greedy. It doesn't help that the investors who get the most attention are often businesses like Hurst and Son, which owns about 60 manufactured housing communities across Washington. That company was investigated in 2023 by the state Office of the Attorney General after accusations of predatory rent practices and inhumane living conditions, including E. coli found in tap water and raw sewage leaks. By the end of 2024, the Attorney General's Office required Hurst and Son to refund tenants about $5.5 million. Cascade PBS reported the average reimbursement was $2,000 and doled out in rent credits.
But not all investment owners are necessarily predatory.
"It's like any business, even a bakery," says McKinstry, who bought her Mead mobile home when it was part of an investor owner's park. "You've got the good and the bad. Know what you're buying and who you're dealing with."
Three Pillars Community founder Daniel Weisfield was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times for trying to let people displaced by the Eaton fire stay in the company's nearby RV park. And while the notice that Bona Vista sent out increased the rent in Otis Orchards to $875, the company says that most people won't pay that much.
Historically, Three Pillars has allowed certain residents, often elderly ones, to pay less than market rate in order to keep them housed. Last year, the max rent at Bona Vista was $750, but some residents only paid $600. After this next cycle of increases, the park says most residents will pay $697 or $726.
Additionally, Bona Vista offers the Washington Mobile Home Rental Assistance Program, which is privately funded by the state's mobile home park owners. It offers a 10% discount to residents who apply and qualify due to financial need.
Among other rules, applicants need to meet HUD's very low income guidelines (in Spokane, that's a yearly income of $31,150 for one adult), plus be elderly or disabled, not receiving any other rental assistance, not have personal property exceeding $40,000 (excluding a manufactured home), not have real property exceeding $25,000, and be in compliance of all park rules.
Bona Vista declined an interview request, but sent the Inlander a statement about the recent rent increases.
"Bona Vista's owners are doing exactly what the owners of rental housing should do," the statement notes. "They have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to repave potholed roads and fix failing septic systems to continue the life of the property. They have beautified the park. They run a clean, well-managed community that charges fair rent in relation to high costs to operate rental housing properties in Washington. Fixing an old mobile home park to make it safe and habitable costs money — which is why the residents are paying higher rents than they used to. Paying increased tax and extremely high construction and materials costs is not easy. Sadly, there's no easy way to keep rents what they used to be and provide the safe, quality housing our residents need."
But Curtiss doesn't feel taken care of. She didn't know about the rent range and has received multiple notices that she's out of compliance with park rules. Notices have cited her for feeding the birds in the street or spraying neighbors with her sprinkler, both of which she denies.
She feels harassed by people she doesn't know and stuck in a situation she doesn't want to be in. When neighbors come over, they talk about the dreaded "blue tape," referring to the painter's tape that the property manager uses to stick notices about park rules and rent increases on their back doors.
"People are fed up with it," she says, "and I'm fearful."
STABILIZATION
Denver Mickali is a first-year law student at the University of Idaho in Moscow. He lives in Campus Vista Mobile Home Park across the state border in Pullman. He bought a home there for $10,000 when he moved to Pullman in 2022 to finish a political science degree at Washington State University.
"I figured that if I was going to move here, and I had been working for a couple years outside of high school before I came back into school, that I could take some of my hard work and set that aside into something that would allow me to live in a more affordable and secure way," he says.
There's something very special about living in a mobile home park, he says. People in his community are mostly veterinary students who can keep a few animals on their lot, or they're disabled or elderly people.
Unlike many manufactured housing communities nowadays, Campus Vista is owned and operated by a local resident, Melissa Finch, the director of WSU's Children's Center. Her family has owned the park for years.
When Mickali first moved to Campus Vista, his lot rent was $405 per month. In 2023, it increased to $420 per month, and in 2024 it went up to $465 per month. But in September, residents received a letter notifying them that rent would increase to $600 in 2025, and they'd have to start paying for parking.
Mickali questioned the legality of the rent increase, not because of the amount, but because of how the amount was justified.
The first notice said the increase was due to a property tax increase on the community from $4,400 to $37,000. Whitman County is in the midst of a revaluation cycle and many properties saw tax increases anywhere from 15% to 200% in 2024, according to the community-sourced website whitmanpropertytax.site.
But when Mickali did the math, a $135 per month increase across about 80 units equaled roughly $130,000 more in yearly revenue for the park, a surplus of more than $92,000 after the tax increase.
Mickali contacted the state Manufactured Housing Dispute Resolution Program in the Attorney General's Office, claiming that the rent notice had been misleading.
Campus Vista's legal team responded, saying that they appreciated the financial difficulty residents were facing but also noting the park's expensive upgrades to sewer infrastructure and the increased costs of necessary maintenance staff.
"My clients cannot simply absorb these costs while also enjoying a reasonable return on their capital investments," the response continued.
As to the legality of the increase, the park's legal team cited the Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act, which states that any rent increases are legal as long as tenants are notified three months in advance.
This motivated Mickali to actively support this year's rent stabilization bills, House Bill 1217 and Senate Bill 5222, which, among other things, would limit rent increases to 7% each year, far lower than the 29% increase he's getting this year.
Mickali submitted testimony to his House representatives, writing that "good business practice in mobile home communities involves stable housing and rent increases ... If we don't secure mobile homes as a viable low income housing opportunity, which should serve to keep humans off the streets, then our alternatives will be narrow and non diverse, failing to solve the issues at hand."
But if Campus Vista limited its rent increase to 7% this year, or about $30 more per month, the overall revenue increase would be about $29,000. That wouldn't even cover this year's property tax increase.
Finch sent out a second notice to residents providing contact information, explaining a bit more about the park's finances and offering a $30 voucher for garbage disposal fees so residents would end up paying $570 a month.
In a statement emailed to the Inlander, Finch writes, "The operations costs ... have increased dramatically. Most notably due to property taxes that have hit Pullman. As a result we were forced to raise rent for our business to remain viable. The notification of this increase was published in September and is lawful."
COOPERATIVE NEIGHBORS
Things turned out well for McKinstry. Thanks to changes in the financial world, she was eventually able to get a lower interest loan to replace her credit card debt. Her home was recently appraised at $160,000, which means she more than sextupled her money. (And if banks start making standard loans on manufactured homes so buyers don't have to pay out of pocket, the price could skyrocket even more, she says, guessing that if financing catches up with demand, they'll probably cost as much as stick-built homes.)
What's more, McKinstry is now in charge of how much rent she pays.
A year after she moved in, more than 200 homeowners in the community formed a nonprofit to purchase the land for $5.5 million, and rebrand as the Takesa Village Homeowners Cooperative.
"Now, I'm sure our property is valued way more, but we pay $380 a month for our [lot] rent," she says. "It's locked in. Nobody can raise it, unless we choose to raise it."
In addition to controlling rent, everyone in the co-op elects members to the board, who vote on how to cover park maintenance costs, infrastructure improvements and the salary of a property manager. The board must also approve new residents. In the midst of all these responsibilities, they've ended up building a stronger sense of community.
"Prior to becoming a cooperative, we did not have social or community events," McKinstry says. "Since becoming a cooperative, we have a church that comes in every summer and does a lunch program for all the kids that live here. We have a craft fair that members here love. We do trunk-or-treats. We have Christmas parties, volunteer days, annual barbecues. It's just an amazing place to live."
Takesa Village was able to do this with the help of Resident Owned Communities, or ROC USA, and technical assistance from Northwest Cooperative Development Center. Both organizations are experts in cooperative mobile home communities. Paul Bradley started ROC USA in 2008 in New Hampshire in part to help his mother, who was worried about rising rent in her manufactured home park.
Now, they've helped more than 320 communities across the country form cooperative nonprofits. They train groups of neighbors, who often have no experience running a business, how to run a board meeting and navigate complex loan language.
In 2023, Northwest Cooperative Development Center was able to help pass a law in Washington requiring property owners to notify residents if they intend to sell and give them the chance to make an offer.
A manufactured housing community in Mead is the latest community to benefit from that law.
Late last August, residents of Meadowlark Manufactured Home Park received registered letters saying that the park was going to be sold. Soon after, ROC USA held a community meeting in the open greenspace inside Meadowlark. They brought representatives to talk about the process, plus McKinstry from Takesa, which happens to be just down the road.
Christine Halland was one of the Meadowlark residents at that meeting. When Halland bought her mobile home in 2020, the lot rent was $365. It increased only modestly over the past four years to $430 in 2024.
But the residents of Meadowlark — which has about 30 households — were excited by the prospect of owning their own park. They decided to form the Meadowlark Homeowners Cooperative to buy the park. The deal should close in mid-February, and will require a rent increase to $585 a month.
The $155 increase in rent is the steepest that residents have ever seen. Many are on fixed retirement income.
"It is gonna be something they have to budget for," Halland says.
But after hearing about Takesa's great experience, plus horror stories from other parks nearby, Halland says residents decided they wanted to be in charge of their own property, even if it meant charging themselves more in rent initially.
"I think owners raise lot rents because they can — because there's nothing to say they can't," she says. "We would not want to do that to ourselves, and we would not want to do that to our neighbor."
Sometimes a cooperative model isn't feasible because the cost of buying the land would drive rents up too much. But O'Banion says that residents are usually willing to pay a rent increase of up to 40% to buy their property, because the likelihood of an investor owner increasing rent more than that over the next few years is pretty high.
At $585, rent at Meadowlark is still cheaper than most parks around the state. But the park doesn't feel cheap. The streets are wide and paved with gravel parking on one side. Three rows are lined with a neat collection of single and double wides, most with porches or garages built on. Cream and grey houses are interrupted with purple, teal and green homes, which gives the tiny neighborhood a bit of a European flair.
Because of her work, Halland gets home most nights around 12:30 am. She always feels safe. She knows her neighbors, recognizes their dogs, families, and cars, and trusts them to watch her house when she's away. The co-op only reinforces that connection.
"We're more connected to one another because we're on the ground with each other," she says.
But forming a co-op is only an option if the community goes up for sale. For Mickali and Curtiss, they have to hope to find a more immediate solution.
"What rights do we have?" Curtiss says. "Show me. Help me." ♦
Editor's Note: This story was updated on Feb. 13 to correct two instances that inaccurately stated Washington law allows homeowners the first right of refusal or the first chance to buy their park if it goes up for sale. The law simply requires park owners to notify residents if the property is going up for sale.