In the wake of the Flint water crisis, Michigan has become a leader in safe water, working to remove lead pipes and harmful chemicals. However, mobile homes across the state still struggle to receive safe, clean water.
That's similar to many mobile home residents across the country. The Associated Press has found that in the past five years, more than half of mobile home parks in the U.S. broke federal drinking water rules and did not submit required tests, with 41% doing so repeatedly.
Ownership and affordability
Esther Sullivan, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado in Denver who wrote a book about the issue, said a key characteristic of manufactured housing communities, commonly known as mobile home parks, is that residents own the home but rent the land it rests on.
As a result, they rely on landlords for investment and maintenance of the property. This creates a heavy reliance on landlords for utilities such as water, sewers, and storm water drainage.
Landlords have a financial interest in investing as little as possible in the infrastructure and maintenance of these properties because it is costly, Sullivan said, and a lot of these mobile parks, developed in the 1970s and 1980s — what she called the heyday of manufactured housing — are now fairly old and run-down.
Many mobile home communities across Michigan are operating at or near full capacity, and they've been hit by rising costs, including for utilities, said John Lindley, the president and CEO of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association, a statewide trade association representing the manufactured and modular housing industry.
Despite that mobile home communities are fairly varied across the country, a pattern has emerged, said Sullivan: “Across the board what we have been seeing is a consolidation of manufactured home communities under corporate and private institutional investment.” She said this is because these communities are seen as a valuable source of passive income.
Manufactured housing communities have long been one of the most reliable sources of affordable housing without government subsidy. However, when these assets are sold to new investors, residents report that their lot rent is almost invariably increased, Sullivan said. This causes the affordability of manufactured home communities to suffer, and many residents are being priced out of their mobile homes.
Regulation
It can be difficult to get private owners to comply with safe drinking water rules, and for Michigan officials and law enforcement to pursue unlicensed parks — they are basically operating unregulated, according to Sullivan.
“Residents estimated that there are over 100 unlicensed parks in the state of Michigan,” Sullivan said. “Of the licensed parks, residents found that around 50% had unclear or out-of-state ownership, making them unsure where to go to report issues with the park.”
Lindley said it's difficult to determine the number of unlicensed mobile communities in the state. “I don’t think anybody really has their arms wrapped around how many there may be,” he continued.
According to Sullivan, Michigan and other states have not regulated large corporate investors any differently than individual landlords, which can be problematic because the two ownership structures can have very different practices, protection for residents, and profit incentives.
“Not being able to enforce and choosing not to enforce those provisions are two completely different things,” Lindley said. “The question is not whether or not the authority exists to enforce those statues and rules, the question is why aren’t they being enforced.”
“Everybody in the state of Michigan deserves access to clean drinking water,” said Lindley.
This past year, Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton filed charges against North Morris Estates, a manufactured housing community owner that was operating without a license and not providing safe drinking water to residents.
According to Lindley, when the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) offered North Morris a corrective action plan to fix the problem, it was refused. EGLE eventually took enforcement action.
“From our standpoint the idea that a manufactured housing community can avoid the scrutiny of regulation that’s in place in Michigan law by merely letting its license lapse is illogical,” Lindley concluded.
John Cherry, a Democratic Senator for Michigan’s 27th District, which includes the city of Flint, said part of the challenge is that it takes a lot of resources for a prosecutor to engage in that type of action. “We’re working with stakeholders to make these laws more enforceable,” Cherry said.
According to Cherry, one of the issues they have uncovered is that some housing communities use customer site piping, which is an underground piping system that does not incorporate treatment to protect public health and does not fall under EGLE's regulatory framework.
Cherry has supported legislation that would give EGLE more oversight over customer site piping.
"In this legislation, we’re trying to give EGLE the same authority it has over public water systems," Cherry said.
“Michigan is home to around 1,100 to 1,200 licensed manufactured housing communities, most of which are affordable, clean, and safe,” said Lindley. “Yet some do not live up to these standards, which is why we have laws and rules in place. Our state and local governments are obliged to enforce those laws. If they are not doing so, consumers will suffer.”
Unsafe drinking water
According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), up to 70% of private water systems in country's mobile home parks violated safe drinking water rules in the past five years.
"One of the biggest issues we’ve heard from residents of manufactured housing communities concerns their water quality," Cherry said.
Manufactured housing communities receive their water from two sources: either hooked up to a municipal water source or a private system, typically a well. EGLE is required to inspect those water sources annually, Lindley said.
According to Sullivan, municipal water systems are tested, but once it enters the park, it may be going through outdated, poorly maintained infrastructure that is not being tested.
“Water supply requires a lot of expensive infrastructure, so it’s important to ensure that whoever is owning and operating that infrastructure is making the investments needed for it to operate safely,” Cherry said.
Persistent drinking water problems have led to residents buying bottled water or filters, which can create financial strain, said Sullivan, and worrying about drinking water they cannot trust creates additional stress for many residents of mobile homes.
“Issues with water quality are only one half of the equation here,” Sullivan said. “There's also serious issues with water reliability, in which residents are experiencing shut-offs, sometimes lasting days, where they have no water coming into their house.”
Sullivan said some residents she has talked to in Michigan feel they have nowhere to report these issues. Some have tried their local health department or city council, but if the mobile park community is privately owned, they've said their complaints go nowhere.
Sullivan said creating a database of manufactured housing communities in Michigan could bring greater awareness what ownership structure each community is under and foster transparency and clarity for both residents and regulatory agencies.
Cherry said it’s important to have improved licensing standards and ensure the regulations currently in place are more enforceable.
