Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Mobile Homes As Affordable Housing

[clock chiming]
Doris Fravel sits on the couch in her living room, done up in pinks and browns. A wall clock ticks behind her and a police scanner murmurs in the corner. [police scanner] Fravel is 80. She lives alone in an avocado green trailer nestled in a small mobile home park on the outskirts of the town of Jersey Shore.
It’s a Marlette trailer. And they’re very well built and this is a ’74.
Fravel says she really likes her mobile home.
I must like it, or I wouldn’t be here 33 years.
Fravel says her mobile home is well-built, close to town, and much roomier than the place she and her husband rented before they moved here.
We lived in an apartment and it was small. Not a whole lot of room. Nothing like…this is almost like a home.
Fravel gets annoyed when people look down on mobile homes. She says if more people had bought homes they could afford, the United States might have avoided the current mortgage crisis.
I wanna say it’s mine and I own it free and clear without taking me 30 to 40 years to pay for it. And that's important to me, but not everybody thinks like I do. (:17)

An hour’s drive Southwest of Fravel’s mobile home park in Jersey Shore, Destiny Aman is working on a Ph.D. in geography at Penn State University Park. I caught up with her in a State College restaurant, across the street from a large mobile home park.
Of course there are problems with mobile homes. That was not a surprise to us, per say.
Aman recently co-authored a study of mobile home owners in rural Pennsylvania. She says, it was no surprise people buy mobile homes because they’re cheaper. What did surprise Aman was how happy owners are with their mobile homes.
In fact, we were quite surprised to find how satisfied mobile home owners were, despite the problems. And they were very aware of the problems. (:08)
Aman found nearly 90 percent of mobile home owners are satisfied with their homes. In addition to affordability, they liked the interior layout, and the ease of maintenance, among other factors. But what about those problems?
We had survey respondents tell us they had very cold floors in the wintertime. They had drafty windows, etc. (:08)
Not everyone was as satisfied as Doris Fravel. The quality of the mobile home was the biggest complaint, followed by a lack of space, and the location of the home.
Aman says, mobile home owners can have trouble with financing too. Instead of a traditional mortgage, most mobile home loans are similar to those you take out to buy a car.
Those are subject to interest rate hikes, percentage points that are much higher than a typical house would be, as well as subprime mortgage lenders seem to be particularly associated with mobile homes. (:13)
So, contrary to what Doris Fravel says… This kind of financing can leave mobile home owners much more vulnerable to losing their homes than regular homeowners.
Mobile homes are actually repossessed, in many cases, much like a car. And that can take place in as little as 30 days if an owner does not stay up on their payments. (:11)
For a look at another potential issue, Aman took me for a closer look at that mobile home park across the street.
[gravel noise & traffic noises]
This is an example of a rural mobile home on leased land. In terms of the study this represented over half of the mobile homes in rural Pennsylvania.
Perched among big-box stores in a busy commercial district, the mobile home owners here rent the land their homes sit on. Aman says, that makes their positions somewhat precarious.
There was a mobile home park back behind Walmart that was recently rezoned as commercial. And the mobile homes were forced to move. (:09)
Having to move might not be that bad, except most mobile homes aren’t very mobile. Especially older ones. And if the home can’t be moved?
The homeowner is forced to essentially abandon their home which would almost never happen to someone who lives in a site-built house. (:07)
Aman is not suggesting people stop living in mobile homes. She’s suggesting legislation be enacted to protect homeowners. For example, in some states mobile home residents must be given the right of first refusal when a park is sold. She also suggests the government create programs to encourage people to buy newer, more efficient mobile homes.
Much like the cash for clunkers program, where people were encouraged to turn in their aging cars so they could purchase more efficient automobiles. (:09)
There is a need for affordable housing in Pennsylvania. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found the number of affordable and available RENTAL units in Pennsylvania is actually shrinking. Statewide, there’s a shortage of more than 220-thousand units. The problem is worst in Centre County, where there are only 15 rental units available for every 100 households with an extremely low income. Housing officials say mobile homes could help fill the gap. I’m Emily Reddy, WPSU.