In the middle of the housing crisis in Montana, where house prices have risen increased by 66% In the past four years alone, residents of the state’s most affordable housing option — mobile home parks — have waged their own battles to level the playing field between them and the massive investment companies that are buying up small park owners across the state.
The rising cost of housing in Montana has significantly outpaced the national increase of 50% since 2020, and aAs the 2025 legislative session approaches, residents hope lawmakers will add protections to avoid being economically forced out of their homes.
In her Presentation 2023 to the Senate Committee on Business, Labor and Affairs, Cindy Newman, a Highwoods resident and longtime advocate for manufactured and mobile home owners, describes changes in lot rent increases in the seven parks that have been gobbled up by major investment firms, pointing to her own lot rent in Bills increased by a total of $117, or 3-4% per year, over the twenty years prior to the acquisition. Within three years of Havenpark purchasing the park, the lot’s rent increased by $391, or 138%.
Utah-based Havenpark Communities operates manufactured homes across the country and is looking to grow, according to its website.
Vivian Rambo, a resident of Countryside, in Great Falls, has a similar experience.
“The rent on the lot was $150 when I moved in,” said Rambo, who moved to the park in 1995. “Now with the extra utilities it is $550 a month, but new people coming in are $700 or better.”
Countryside was purchased by Havenpark about four years ago and is now states the current plot rental in the $475-$775 range. The company currently owns seven mobile home parks in Montana, spread between Kalispell, Great Falls and Billings, totaling more than 1,800 controversial lots. Expansion of 276 lots scheduled for Golden Meadows in Billings West End.
Along with the drastic increase in plot rental prices, residents are faced with separate utility costs once included in the rent. And if residents want to move, THey, they don’t have many options.
“Moving your trailer costs $15,000 to $20,000, and there’s nowhere to move it, so you’re stuck,” Rambo said in an interview with the Daily Montanan. “Once you get in there and the rent keeps going up, you kind of get locked into it. You can’t sell it, you can’t leave unless you just walk away from your house and give it to them, which I know has happened in a few cases.
Keeping residents trapped in permanent trailers and paying ever-increasing plot rent is not an unfortunate side effect of the business, but rather its main feature, as expressed by Frank Rolfe, co-founder of Mobile Home University. famously told Bloomberg the business model is akin to running “A waffle house where everyone is chained to the stalls.”
The sentiment is echoed in Havenpark’s original, website copy from 2016 when they touted residents’ inability to move their trailers as a key selling point: “Tenant turnover is also minimal because it is difficult and very expensive ($6,000 – $8,000+) for renters to move their homes. As a result, operating cash flow is among the highest of all property classes.”
Havenpark is even accused of ensuring that residents cannot move their caravans. In a 2022 lawsuit, Meadowlark residents park in Billings Havenpark sued about unsafe water conditions and the unlawful cutting of the tow bars of residents’ mobile homes, preventing them from being moved.
Complementing rising rents and the inability to relocate is the park’s lack of maintenance, which Newman calls an “ongoing environmental and public safety problem.”
“The maintenance is terrible,” Rambo repeats. “You can go and tell them what your problem is, but they won’t listen. They just say ‘Yes ma’am’ and you go back to waiting.”
Legal protection? Not in Montana
If residents raise their concerns, they risk immediate retaliation, they told the Daily Montanan.
“Older people are terrified of that,” Rambo said, speaking about the park’s behavior toward residents and drawing attention to specific issues. “They would charge you or evict you, that kind of thing.”
Efforts to pass stronger protections have repeatedly failed in state legislatures or met the governor’s veto.
Sen. Brian Hoven, R-Great Falls, introduced Senate Bills 362, 268 and 269 during the 2021 legislative session.
Senate Bill 362 aimed to create an appeals process for residents facing rent increases of more than 3% in a single month, along with resources intended to protect homeowners from retaliation from landlords. Senate Bill 268 would have allowed residents to petition local authorities to condemn their park if rents rose “significantly above the consumer price index,” and would have given homeowners in the park the option of a Resident- Owned Community (ROC) and purchase the park from the city. or province. Both measures failed to pass their respective committees.
Senate Bill 269 was passed and signed by Governor Greg Gianforte, a Republican, but was heavily modified from its original form, which would have required parks to give residents 90 days’ notice of the park’s sale, so that they had time to organize a park. buy among themselves. The bill signed by Gianforte made no mention of a 90-day notice period, but instead offered park owners an incentive to sell their parks to residents by exempting the sale from capital gains taxes.
During the 2023 legislative session, residents were hopeful when House Bill 889 passed both houses of the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill would have made changes such as requiring park owners to give residents 60 days’ notice of a rent increase instead of 30 days’ notice, and giving residents the option to sign a full-year lease to close, instead of renting from month to month.
The bill was immediately vetoed from Gianforte.
“I will be the first to say that this bill would not have solved all the problems facing mobile home owners,” said Rep. Jonathan Karlan, D-Missoula, who sponsored the bill. “But I would say that the park owners have an enormous amount of power over these residents right now, and that bill would have given the residents a little more time and resources to make decisions.”
Karlan further explains that the problem is not only in Havenpark.
“I have constituents who are engaging in predatory and unfair practices that do not exist on a Haven Park property, and we must enact strong laws that protect Montanans from unfair practices, period, whether they come from private equity or an individual,” he said.
Learn from other states
Faced with mounting frustration and limited options, Newman and other advocates are looking to successful programs in other states for inspiration. Colorado’s Mobile Home Park Oversight Program, for example, offers a model for how Montana could address the crisis.
Colorado’s program, overseen by the Division of Housing, administers the Mobile Home Park Act and provides a dispute resolution and enforcement program. It oversees several important functions related to mobile home parks, including providing education and training on relevant laws, and receiving and investigating all complaints. It also facilitates the resolution of disputes between mobile home owners and landlords, establishes legal violations, enforces compliance and engages in public rulemaking to clarify regulations, allowing mobile home owners, park owners and managers to file complaints for resolution without recourse to resort to expensive legal proceedings. .
“The issues that arise when private equity investors are your landlord can be very expensive to take to court,” Newman said. “That’s a David-versus-Goliath situation that residents can’t win or afford.”
To fund the program, proponents are proposing a modest split of fees between park owners and residents, similar to that in Colorado, where they settled for $50 per year per lot, split between the landlord and the resident.
As Montana prepares for the 2025 legislative session, residents remain hopeful that Montana’s leaders will finally listen to their pleas.
“I like living in my house,” Rambo said. ‘I just don’t like the way the company is running it because they only look out for their own good, line their own pockets and don’t care about the residents. There are so many older people on fixed incomes. I don’t know how long they can keep paying the rent if it keeps going up. Luckily I’m still working, but I’m 76 and how much longer can I work?”
Newman shares the same sentiment.
“People are suffering and we are looking for a fair and just solution,” she said. “And we’re running out of time.”
