Episode 5: Hedge Funds and Mobile Home Parks: Part 1 of 2

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to Pulse on Politics, rooted in place but
expansive in scope.
This podcast keeps a finger onthe pulse of political currents
shaping our region and thenation at large.

(00:20):
We share bold voices, realstories, and zero spin.
I am your host, Tamara Graham.
Welcome to the conversation.
Welcome to the conversation.
Welcome, my friends, to Pulse onPolitics.
I am Tamara Graham.
We've got a doozy of a topic foryou today, the first of a

(00:42):
two-part series.
It's a topic that I recentlylearned about myself through a
friend of mine who's been goingthrough something very
disheartening, and he's actuallyjoining us on the podcast today.
And it's something that isaffecting communities across the
Great Lakes Basin and the entireUnited States.
And it is hedge funds and mobilehome parks.
And what you're about to learnis going to make you pretty

(01:03):
angry if you are someone whoactually cares about anyone
outside of the top 1% in thiscountry.
You may be surprised at...
as I was to learn that hedgefunds are buying up mobile home
parks in mass, not only inMichigan, not only in the Great
Lakes Basin region, but allacross the United States.

(01:25):
And it's not because they careabout affordable housing.
I will tell you that.
These so-called quote-unquoteinvestments, and I use that term
very loosely, have realimplications for real people
living in these parks and forthe future of affordable housing
in America in general.
This podcast is the first in atwo-part series that we're going

(01:45):
to have.
And I'm joined by three gueststoday who have a stake in this
trend.
Paul Terranova, who is a Midwestcommunity organizer with
Manufactured Housing Action,also called MH Action.
And we're also joined by TheoGantos and Pamela Maxey.
And they're two residents wholive in some of the parks that

(02:07):
we're talking about today, andthey're going to share their
stories.
And there are some prettyincredible stories on what these
hedge funds do once they get ahold of these mobile home parks.
So we are going to dive rightinto this.
All right, welcome everybody.
How's everybody doing today?
Good.

SPEAKER_03 (02:26):
Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
Excellent.
So I want to start out byeveryone introducing yourselves.
I want everybody to get to knowwho each of you are a little
bit.
Paul, we are going to start withyou.
Just introduce yourself and tellus a little bit about your
background and what brings youhere to be part of this
conversation today.

SPEAKER_04 (02:44):
Sure.
So yeah, my name is PaulTerranova.
As you said, I'm the MidwestCommunity Organizer for MH
Action, which basically meansthat I support leaders like Theo
and Pam and about 1,200 othersacross the state of Michigan who
are resident leaders living inmanufactured housing communities

(03:05):
trying to make life better,either by addressing issues
locally in their parks as theycome up, or by banding together
across the state and trying toget stronger protections.
So yeah, my background's incommunity organizing, and when I
learned about MH Action andlearned about the issues, it
just felt like one of the kindof...

(03:26):
kind of a key canary in the coalmine for what's happening in
this country.
It cuts across everydemographic, it cuts across
every ideology, but you go intoany manufactured housing
community and you'll findwonderful people who are taking
care of their neighbors, who aremowing the lawn for the senior
who lives next door, who knoweach other either by name or by

(03:50):
their dogs, not walking dogsaround the park.
And you start having aconversation and immediately you
start hearing the rents aregoing up.
They've added new fees.
They're starting to penalize usfor this.
They have a huge list of rulesthat we could never possibly

(04:10):
follow, but they're notfollowing the rules themselves
and they're not maintaining thisand they're not maintaining
that.
And it's just a very clear issuethat unites really wonderful
people against some folks whoaren't so wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 (04:23):
Yeah, yeah.
Theo, tell us a little bit aboutyourself.

SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
I'm a semi-retired systems guy, database theorist,
engineer.
And now I'm just a paralegaltrying to help defend people
against...
under my wife's direction, who'san attorney, we're doing
eviction defense for a lot offolks that are having trouble,

(04:51):
you know, helping them to defendthemselves and get
representation.
So, and I got into this 15 yearsago, we moved here.
It was in the previous owner wasabusing everybody in here and
stealing their homes which thisweek came to light how many he

(05:13):
stole um and just saw one afteranother after another basically
serial uh destruction offamilies and uh so so we really
said, okay, we got to dig in andtry to stop this.
At first, it was difficult.

(05:35):
We did make some early headway.
Then we met up with some folksin some other parks.
From there, we met up with MHAction.
Since then, it's been, okay, nowwe have a chance.
It's not just steamroller versusgrape.

(05:55):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (05:56):
we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of what
that looks like, too, in thisconversation.
Pam, tell us a little bit aboutyourself.

SPEAKER_02 (06:05):
I've been a stay-at-home mom, actually, for
the past 18 years, so...
You don't want to say it'scoming to an end, but it's
graduating high school.
It's coming to an end.
Right?
I have lived here in amanufactured housing community,
I want to say since 2016.

(06:26):
And I got involved in MH Action,I don't know, a year and a half
or so ago.
And it's interesting, the peoplethat actually led me to MH
Action was the EGLE.
I know we'll talk about themlater, but I had filed a
complaint about our water systemhere, and they told me about MH
Action.

(06:46):
And so that is how I gotinvolved.
And yeah, been involved eversince.

SPEAKER_01 (06:52):
All right.
What I want to do with thisconversation, I want to talk a
little bit about the statisticsof...
mobile home parks, what ishappening to them across the
country.
And then I also want to addressthe stereotypes of who lives in
manufactured housing, becausethere's some pretty incredible

(07:12):
stereotypes out there that thegeneral public has regarding
this.
So Paul and Pam, I'm going tolet either of you answer this.
I want you to address thestereotype that the average
person or that a lot of peoplehave with regard to people who
live in manufactured housing.
Tell us how it differs from whatpeople believe that it is.

(07:35):
Either of you can answer.
Oh,

SPEAKER_02 (07:39):
my goodness.
I think there's a hugestereotype that people living in
manufactured housing arebasically just living off of the
system.
We're lazy.
It goes on and on.
What I found when I actuallylived in manufactured housing,
because this is my first time, Ihadn't lived in it until around

(07:59):
2016, like I said, and I justfound it so different.
I found it to be a great littlecommunity in here.
It's people who care about eachother.
I had lived in an apartmentbefore I lived here and Somehow,
even though people lived incloser quarters, we never really

(08:20):
met our neighbors.
We never knew each other or gotout and talked to each other.
Nobody, I'd lived there foralmost four years.
I didn't know any of myneighbors.
And when I moved intomanufactured housing community,
that all changed.
Suddenly everybody wanted toknow who you are, where you came
from.
Do you need any help withanything?
And we have people here in mycommunity.

(08:42):
There's about 150 lots, so thefamilies here range from every
aspect of life, everything thatyou could think of.
Sure, there are poor, but sure,there are also people that
aren't poor.
There are every race in here.

(09:06):
There's every politicalspectrum.
There's a little bit ofeverybody.
It's not at all what people wantto think that it is.
It's actually a great standard,I think, that a lot more of
society should take care to belike, I would think.

SPEAKER_04 (09:24):
Yeah, I would jump in and just say that at this
point, three years intoorganizing with MH Action, I
think I've probably visitedsomewhere between 100 and 150
manufactured housing communitiesknocking on doors.
And I don't know that you cansay there is one kind of even
one kind of manufactured housingcommunity, the, the difference

(09:46):
between, um, you know, an over55 there, you know, you'll find
a range of like the over 55community where there's not a
blade of grass out of place.
Um, and there's a pool and atennis court and even one I saw
with a, you know, nine hole golfcourse.
Um, and then there are parksthat are, you know, 30 homes and

(10:09):
pretty distressed and have beenneglected by some of these
companies for a long time.
But in all of those parks,you're going to find a range of
folks from a range ofexperiences.
You'll have a decent number offolks who are seniors and
retired, folks who have made aplan.
They saved their whole lives.
They retired.

(10:30):
They figured out what they couldafford and they bought a home
and, you know, based on sort ofa reasonable expectation of
inflation and so forth, this isa plan for their sort of forever
home, their final home.
You'll also find a decent numberof folks with disabilities,
young families, kind of workingclass families, folks who are

(10:50):
working in skilled trades, lotsof folks.
You'll see lots of trucks with,you know, tools and ladders on
the sides, right?
So lots of folks who are workinghard and lots of folks who have
worked hard and who continue,like Pam said, to take care of
each other.

SPEAKER_01 (11:10):
Yeah, I think mobile homes have, you know, they've
played, they've traditionallyand always have played such an
important part in the housingecosystem.
You know, and then You look atretirement communities in
Florida or mobile home parks inCalifornia where a mobile home
is going for a million dollarsbecause it's out on the beach.
So there's such a vast array, asyou said, of people that live in

(11:34):
these.
And I know when you think of amillion-dollar mobile home park,
you don't think of that asaffordable housing, but in
California market, it isaffordable housing.

UNKNOWN (11:43):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
But especially around here in the Great Lakes
Basin.
So I want...
Can you talk a little bit moreto the role that the parks have
played in...
Historically have played inproviding affordable housing in
the United States and what thatfuture looks like?

SPEAKER_04 (11:58):
Theo or Pam, you want to jump in first?

SPEAKER_00 (12:00):
Well, it started in a big way right after World War
II.
They didn't have enough housingfor families to start out.
So then...
Obviously, the building of theseevolved.
They were little more thantrailers you would attach to a

(12:20):
car and drive off.
But then as they started tobecome bigger and more
permanent, it got into, oh,well, I guess we're building a
house.
Just a house that we can movearound.
to its final destination.
And that's really basically whatit is now.

(12:41):
There's a single and there'sdoubles and then there's
extensions.
But it's basically, it's amodular way of building a house
that has pluses and minuses.
But the biggest plus is that itcan be manufactured and then
shipped to a site rather thanbuilt on site so the labor is
all in the factory and it's justinstalled.

(13:04):
Then later on, they decided,okay, now we have to have a
place to put all these, havesome regulations.
1959 was the first year inMichigan really tackled this.
And they also dealt with theidea of how to tax these.
And they made a deal with theproperty owners then.
They said, okay, we're not goingto tax these like a regular

(13:27):
house.
So the idea is you're going tosell the home.
And because you're a licensedseller now, that's where they
were going with it.
So we'll regulate that.
And then you have to put it on alot.
You could charge them rent, butyou'll only have to pay$3 a
month toward tax as a result.

(13:47):
That kind of got changedeventually as 1985, they have
the new law came into effect in87.
And that's the one we'reoperating on today.
That's essentially until NorthMorse Estates pleaded guilty.
It had never really beenenforced for operating without a

(14:07):
license.
It just shows that if you leavelaws around for 40 years, some
brilliant guys are going to findall the holes.
Six-year-old playing videogames.
Anybody does that is going toknow.
There's ways

SPEAKER_03 (14:25):
around.

SPEAKER_04 (14:27):
That's where we're at.
Yeah.
To get at kind of the role, Imean, it's a huge role in terms
of affordable housing.
The statistic we hear all thetime is 22 million Americans
live in manufactured housing, 6%of the housing stock in the
country.
And in Michigan, I think thecensus data was something like

(14:50):
somewhere over 480,000Michiganders living in
manufactured housingcommunities, 1,000 licensed
parks.
So, So they tend to be tuckedaway and a little bit out of the
public eye, but it's a huge It'sa huge piece of affordable
housing.
And if we think back a year orso when the governor talked

(15:16):
about a massive investment totry to create 10,000 units of
affordable housing, we'relooking at between 150 and
200,000 units of affordablehousing that are under threat
right now.
So that math doesn't work.
If you continue to allow thepredatory companies to actually

(15:37):
reduce the amount of affordablehousing, we're going to be in
trouble.

SPEAKER_01 (15:41):
And as we speak,

SPEAKER_00 (15:42):
it is ongoing.

SPEAKER_01 (15:43):
Yeah.
When did hedge funds become athing in affordable housing?
Because it's important to knowthis is the trend across the
United States.
Right.
With residential homes as wellas small businesses, hedge funds
in Wall Street and property andfarms, hedge funds in Wall
Street are starting to come inand buy everything up.

(16:04):
Yeah.
I did not realize that this washappening with mobile home parks
in mass.
So when did this trend reallystart?
When did you really start to seethis happen in mobile homes?

SPEAKER_04 (16:16):
Well, from MH Action's perspective, there was
a group of residents who wereorganizing locally, and they
actually started to recognizethis around 2011.
The story I always hear is thatit was after the 2007, 2008
financial crisis.

(16:36):
You have some of the Wall Streettypes who are looking for,
quote, safe places to put theirmoney.
After

SPEAKER_01 (16:42):
they killed the housing market.

SPEAKER_04 (16:45):
Exactly.
So, you know, it's about andjust to be clear, hedge funds,
private equity firms, realestate investment trusts.
There's a whole variety of thesestructures.
We just call them kind ofpredatory structures.
players.
But I think, yeah, I thinkthat's been, I think it's been,
you know, 12 to 15 years thatit's been going.

SPEAKER_02 (17:09):
I know like where I live at Hillcrest, they bought
in, I don't know the exact year,but it was in the eighties that
it was bought by private equity.
Wow.
Back in the eighties.
It was the eighties or thenineties.
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (17:21):
And her, her park actually was bought by the same
company that used to own thispark before my previous owner.
So RHP, This was actually hisfirst park, I believe.
And he bought it from the actualoriginal owner's wife at the

(17:43):
time.
And I saw this sort of happenbecause I had a grandmother who
lived in a...
mobile home.
Like, and it was alwaysconsidered respectable, you
know, even in the 1970s.
And I just saw this sort ofshift around 1990.
It just sort of being a sort oflooking down on folks.

(18:06):
And a lot of these folks wereveterans.
They might be disabled, youknow, different things.
And I was like, saw a lot ofthese guys as, you know, old
vets, World War II vets.
You know, they tell me storiesabout, oh, yeah, we went in, had
to You know, Bon Ploesti andall, you know.
So I never saw this as anegative thing, but I guess it

(18:30):
did change.
And then the guy that boughtthis park used private equity
money to do it before.
You know, this is around 2000,2000.
But he wasn't as evolved on theplaybook.
about how they harvest thecompanies.
So he was just basically doingthe slow squeeze the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 (18:55):
So let's talk, I wanna dive into what actually
happens with these hedge fundsbecause they are not treating
these mobile home parks asinvestments in people.
They're like everything thatthey do, they are treating them
as investments to squeeze asmuch revenue out as absolutely
possible.
And the repercussions of thatare horrific.

(19:19):
And this is where I gotinterested in this story because
I was chatting with Theo aboutwhat was going on.
And it was...
just about a month ago now itwas, when his mobile home park
was sued and litigated in court.
And they were forced to sell theproperty and received only a

(19:39):
$25,000 fine, which I think isjust an absolute joke.
But more on that when we get tothe policy side of things.
But he showed me his water.
Theo, did you...
Do a jar of water for us today.
He showed me, he sent me apicture of what his water looks
like.

SPEAKER_00 (19:57):
This was actually 14 days, two weeks after the
prosecutor announced that he wasfiling charges for operating
without a license.
And he deliberately held upanother thing of water that was
actually not as bad as this.
This isn't the worst either.
I mean, there's people like sendme pictures of tubs just filled

(20:19):
with something that looks likemud.

SPEAKER_01 (20:20):
So let's dive into that.
What happens when an equity firmcomes in and takes over a park?
Someone walk us through whatthat looks like because it's

SPEAKER_00 (20:33):
pretty incredible.
Well, the pool stops being runbecause somebody screws up and
forgets to pay the gas bill.
So the boiler freezes and that,you know, oh my, we can't spend
$10,000 on a new boiler.
Well, dummy should have paid thegas bill.

(20:54):
And then usually in the case ofour community center, the hot
water heater, all the pipesburst, you know, so that's the
community center has been downand the pool.

SPEAKER_02 (21:06):
Right.
It's just interesting becauseit's happening right now.
So when I first moved here, wewere owned by RHP Properties.
I had filed complaints regardingour water with the health
department, with EGLE,Environment, Great Lakes, and
Energy.
They're in charge of water inMichigan.

(21:27):
Right.
It's just been a process tryingto get things figured out.
Basically what it boils down tois it's been a years long of a
battle.
You know, you reach a pointwhere you finally think you're
going somewhere and somebodycares and somebody is going to
fix the problem.

(21:48):
And in my case, it was the EGLEwas able to come out here and
verify that we have a SafeDrinking Water Act violation.
So they cited the park.
And just within a few monthslater, guess what?
The park gets sold.
So the new park owners, anotherprivate equity company, we're

(22:10):
now owned by Cambio.
Well, they don't care.
They're aware that there's asafe drinking water act
violation.
They're aware that we can'tdrink the water here.
But what they're focused on istaking out all of the blighted
trailers, which we do want themto do.
It's something that I had beenasking RHP to do for years

(22:33):
because they're blighted.
They attract vermin.
They're disgusting.
They're falling apart.
They're full of mold.
So RHP never would do it, butnow Cambio can come in and do
it, which, okay, fine.
That's great.
But basically all they do, andthis seems to be the playbook,
is they want things to look niceon the outside.

(22:54):
They don't care what anything islike on the inside.
So although they're aware of theinfrastructure needing to be
fixed and that we can't drinkour water, they're just pulling
out the new homes so they canput the brand new homes in.
And I'm telling you, they'relining us up in here like we're
cattle.
I've never seen trailers...
Mm-hmm.

(23:31):
No

SPEAKER_01 (23:31):
one's forcing them.
No one is forcing them to fixthe water issue.
No.
All of this is a major, majorpublic health crisis just
waiting to happen.
It is.
Water, vermin, disease.
I mean, no one is forcing them.
No one

SPEAKER_02 (23:49):
is

SPEAKER_01 (23:49):
forcing them.
Yeah, that is insanity.
That's insanity.
And this is happeningeverywhere.
This is happening everywhere.
This isn't just, you know, it'shappening in this park or, you
know, that park over there.
It's literally happening inevery park that these hedge
funds take over.

SPEAKER_00 (24:06):
Well, when you don't care, it's everywhere, you know,
and it's...

SPEAKER_04 (24:14):
I mean, I think the way to one way to think about it
is that this is this is theemerging dominant business
model.
So it's not this isn't justabout a company or a an
individual owner doingsomething.
This is a business model whereyou, you know, you buy a park,
you immediately raise the lotrents.

(24:35):
You do what they callunbundling.
So traditionally, historically,a lot of rent would cover things
like water, sewer, trash.
you know, taxes, those kinds ofthings.
But suddenly those becomeadditional fees.
You reduce staffing.
So instead of having someone inthe office every day, now you
have a manager who's coveringthree, four, sometimes five
parks.
You reduce maintenance.

(24:56):
Things that used to be done inwell-run parks, things that used
to be done every year are doneon that sort of as needed if
there's a problem kind of basis.
And when folks report issues,you know, folks will report, oh,
hey, they're, you know, 40, 60,70% of the streetlights are out.
And the answer from the managerwill be, oh, that's not in the

(25:17):
budget this year.
And one of my old mentors alwayssaid, a budget is just a
statement of priorities.
And so what they're basicallysaying is that's not a priority
right now.
The companies have differentsort of focus areas or slightly
different practices.
Some of them will be veryfocused on the sort of

(25:40):
beautification stuff that Pamtalked about trying to raise the
curb appeal so that they're in away you can think about it as
they're simply looking at afinancial asset that they can
try to raise the value of onpaper.
So they've purchased a park andthey raised a lot, they raised a
lot of rents in the fees andsuddenly on paper, it looks more
valuable.

(26:00):
In some cases, they'll thenborrow against that to buy the
next park.
In some cases, it seems likethey do that sort of traditional
private equity thing where theyhave the LLC take out debt and
then to pay themselves back sothat they've made their money,
whether the park is successfulor not.
And they can just kind of, someof them will buy parks that are

(26:23):
in really, really good shape.
And then kind of ride them downas they, you know, as they try
to force the residents to do allthe aesthetic work and they
neglect the infrastructureunderground and all that kind of
stuff.
So it's just, it's an extractionmodel.
And I think we were able to lookat data from Lara about licensed

(26:46):
parks and What we couldrelatively easily tell is well
over 70% of the home sites seemto be owned by out-of-state or
big corporate players.
It's probably worse than thatwith the LLCs owned by LLCs, but
that's what we could tell.

SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Yeah.
And let's talk about that for amoment because Theo sent me some
information where this park wasowned, a park was owned by this
equity firm, but it was a shellcompany of this equity firm and
then the shell company of thatequity firm.
So it's like literally, it couldbe three to four deep of the
same company.
They're just using differentnames.

(27:27):
Let's talk about that for amoment, the strategy of that.
And how they're not being heldaccountable for that, it seems.
Pam, when you just said thatyours was just sold and it's
owned by Cambio now- Is that acompletely different company or
is that a shell company of thecompany that owned it before who
actually got the fine orwhatever it was that they

(27:51):
actually did receive?
And did they receive a fine?
It seems to me they're gettingslaps on the hands.

SPEAKER_02 (27:56):
No, they didn't receive a fine, just a notice
that you need to fix this assoon as possible or what will
happen, nobody knows,

SPEAKER_01 (28:06):
but fix it.
Is nothing,

SPEAKER_02 (28:08):
apparently.
No, fine.
As far as, to my knowledge,Cambio is an entirely separate
private equity entity than RHPProperties, but what they'll do,
I know what RHP Properties did,they own, I think it was over
250 manufactured homes inseveral states, but each

(28:30):
manufactured community, I'msorry, that they buy is a
different LLC.
So Hillcrest Acres was its ownLLC.
And if there's a problem withHillcrest Acres, it doesn't have
to necessarily be attached toRHP because it's its own LLC.
And then on and on with everysingle other manufactured home

(28:51):
community.
That is also what Cambio does.
So Cambio owns us, but I thinkour license in LARA, is probably
mentioned as Hillcrest Acres,but I have to verify that.
But yeah, no, they're a separatebut equally evil private equity
entity.

SPEAKER_00 (29:13):
It's a multi-headed hydra, and that's what I've seen
too.
And sometimes you have to dodetective work to even find out
who is at the head.

SPEAKER_01 (29:21):
It seems so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (29:24):
Well, I mean, there's recently...
Go ahead, Theo.
Well, I was just going to saythere's a recent filing
uncovered that there's yetanother entity that Alden is
using to hold titles of homesand acquire titles of homes.
And they've just tried to use astrategy to get like 37 homes

(29:46):
and take the titles here as away.
I don't know why they would dothat other than to just expedite
the sale of this property.

SPEAKER_04 (29:55):
Well, that's, yeah, I mean, I think Theo's Park is
an interesting example where youhave, you know, there's a North
Morris Estates LLC of some kindthat is just that park.
And then there's, above that,there's Homes of America.
And then above those, there'sSmith Management and Alden
Global Capital.
And now he's just found anothercompany that is, you know, the

(30:17):
sort of financing and sale ofparks, of actual homes there.
And, you know, the chances ofthose at the top, you know,
Randall Smith, the person whois, you know, the head of Alton
Global Capital, you know, of himbeing held accountable for the
situation that Theo and hisneighbors are facing is

(30:38):
minuscule when you're, you know,when this is the first
prosecution of anyone.

SPEAKER_00 (30:43):
I got it.
On this document, it says bothHeath Freeman, which is Randy's
buddy that he's on Wall Street.
who is now CEO of, uh, I think aCEO of Alden.
Yeah.
Or, and, or CEO of homes ofAmerica as well.

(31:03):
Right.
So, uh, you

SPEAKER_04 (31:04):
can see that you can see the connections.
It's not that you can't see theconnections, but it's the, the
actual accountability and beingheld, held to account and having
some consequences for treatingpeople the way that they have,
uh, That's, that is a wholenother, that's a whole nother,
that's a whole different level.

SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
These are so hard to investigate that the state even
messed up and they, they gave methis thing, you know, cause like
I had to point out to them thatthe original filing, cause they
were sending out a denialletter.
Okay.
We're, we're denying yourlicense in November of 2023.
And I had to point out to them,I go that MHP name.

(31:43):
That LLC doesn't exist inMichigan.
There is no LLC with that name.
And I said, so do you checkthese LLC?
No, we go by what they put onthe form.
I go, so I could just put DonaldDuck, like big quack LLC, and
you're not going to check it?

SPEAKER_01 (32:01):
Jeez.
So there's no accountability.

SPEAKER_00 (32:03):
I got checked for renewing my driver's license.

SPEAKER_01 (32:05):
Yeah.
I was going to say that they'refinding every loophole.
It's like they're deliberatelysearching for every loophole
they can to extract as much outas possible.
And they're not being heldaccountable for literally
anything.
So nothing is going to changeuntil they are held accountable.

SPEAKER_00 (32:23):
Well, and it's your pension money, too.
It's like everybody's 401kmoney.
That's what's being investedhere.
But we don't need maximum profitextraction when it comes to
airplane travel.
Yeah.
Or water quality or somethingimportant, right?

(32:44):
Well, there's a

SPEAKER_01 (32:46):
fallacy.
There's a fallacy that 401ktakes up a large percentage of
the stock market and it doesnot.
93% of the stock market is ownedby 10% of the people and of that
remaining 7%, 401k is about 40to 60% of that.
And that's it.
So it's not, that's such just,it's such a fault.

(33:08):
It's not a good argument.
It is a very weak argumentbecause it is not everyday
people's money that is beinginvested in this.
It is billionaires becomingbillionaires and extracting
money off the backs of everyoneelse is what this is.
So let's call this for what itis.

SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
The billionaires are definitely behind it.
It's their genius of how to hackthe system.
Well, it's their

SPEAKER_01 (33:31):
system.
They built it.
So, yeah.
I

SPEAKER_04 (33:34):
think another piece that's just useful to think
about is, you know, as Theo'stalked about and Pam has talked
about kind of the loopholes, Ithink it's both loopholes and
it's also just wearing downalready under-resourced
enforcement, you know, agenciesor mechanisms.

(33:55):
Why don't you make a newstrategy?
Yeah, so, you know, we'll talkto...
Local governments who are like,well, you know, I remember
talking to a legislator who wasa former mayor and he talked
about having a run in with oneof these companies.
And as a local government, theysent them notices, sent them
letters, sent them to all thethings, you know, whatever the
violations were they're dealingwith.

(34:16):
And they just got ignored by thecorporate office.
It's like, why do we need todeal with this little problem?
community in Michigan until theyactually had to sue them.
You know, you find, I rememberactually Pam talking about a
situation of trying to get someof the, you know, blighted homes
removed and the local townshipsaying, well, yeah, we could

(34:36):
come in and remove them becausethey refused to.
And it would cost us somethinglike$10,000 to$20,000 a piece to
pull them out.
And then theoretically, weshould be able to collect that
money from RHP, but good luck.
And if there are 10 or 20 ofthose homes, that could end up
with being a big part of a smalltownship's budget.

SPEAKER_02 (34:58):
So they literally shamed me for the question,
basically.
They shamed me by telling me itwas going to come out of my own
taxpayer money to have RHPremove all these blighted homes.

SPEAKER_04 (35:09):
Yeah.
And then we've seen multiplesituations where...
Even sometimes a statelegislator will call us, you
know, I'll get a phone call andsaying, this is Senator
so-and-so or state repso-and-so.
We've got a situation in ourdistrict.
Can you help?
And they've already got Eagleinvolved and they've already got
Laura involved and they've gotthe local township and they've

(35:31):
got the county, you know, healthdepartment and the state
legislators.
And they're all at the table andthey all seem to be engaged.
They all seem to be likesincerely wanting to try and fix
the situation and And they can'tfind the levers to do it.
Now, someone could argue thatthey're just, you know, they're
just not doing their job.
But, you know, I've seenprobably four or five of these

(35:52):
situations in Michigan where Ihave, you know, folks who are
really upset about what's beingdone to people in their
districts.
You know, two, three yearslater, it hasn't changed.

SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
Do you think it's because their hands are tied or
do you think, why do you thinkit is?

SPEAKER_04 (36:07):
I think it's the combination.
I mean, okay, so one of the waysthat we often talk about this is
if you think about a line thatlike this is the law, right?
And on one side of the law,you've got the things that are
legal but probably shouldn't be.
Raising rent 100% on retiredseniors, fee gouging, all kinds

(36:30):
of stuff that's perfectly legalbut really shouldn't be.
We call it lawful but awful.
Um,

SPEAKER_01 (36:36):
and on

SPEAKER_04 (36:38):
the other side of the, on the other side of the
line is you've got all thethings that are illegal, but
unenforced.
And that's where the feels youwant the, why don't you make me
strategy works.
And so, you know, it's everytownship building inspector and
every, you know, Laura, um,investigator has many, many,

(36:59):
many, many, many things thatthey're dealing with.
And, um, oftentimes it feelslike if they can just be
intransigent enough, therearen't big enough penalties
looming over them.

SPEAKER_01 (37:11):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (37:12):
That

SPEAKER_01 (37:12):
$25,000 I think is a joke.

SPEAKER_04 (37:15):
Right.
That's a latte for RandallSmith.
And then there's just, yeah,there's just the fact that
those, you know, A, thosepenalties almost never come to
pass.
And if they do, they're nothingthat's going to phase these kind
of folks.

SPEAKER_00 (37:34):
What's interesting is the evolution in the way that
they deal with the buildingtrade, the building inspectors.
In the old days, you getbuilders building houses.
They never want to have a run-inwith a building inspector
because that's only going tocost them money from their
perspective.

(37:55):
So they're always respectful.
You realize the guy's busierthan heck.
And, you know, he's probablyspread too thin anyway.
And so they just want to say,hey, the guy wants it done a
certain way.
Okay, no problem.
You know, I could just changethat.
No problem.
But they're not prepared foroutright defiance.
And they're not prepared toenforce every single act that

(38:16):
they make.
Oh, you've got to remove thatpile of debris.
No, you can't park homes in thestreet.
Are you kidding?
The fire trucks can't even getthrough.
Yeah, of course you've got topatch those potholes.
Of course you've got to plow thestreets.
What happens is there's a firein the back of somebody's house.

SPEAKER_01 (38:30):
So this extraction, the term that you used, Paul,
which– Is a very strong word,but it's essentially what is
happening.
It's working because people arebeing evicted.
And where the hell are theygoing?
Like, where do you go from someof the most affordable housing

(38:50):
available?
Where do you go?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (38:52):
Oh, you

SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
know, I can't pass a credit check after that.

SPEAKER_04 (38:57):
I was talking to a woman who lives in a park.
This was in Illinois, but it wasa park owned by the same company
that owns Theo's.
She was actually renting thehome, but it was in such bad
condition that first the Thelocal, she had a housing

(39:18):
voucher.
First, the local governmentpulled the housing voucher, said
that the home is not in goodenough condition for us to
subsidize.
And then the school actuallysent Child Protective Services
to look at the house.

SPEAKER_03 (39:30):
And

SPEAKER_04 (39:31):
she was told she had to get the kids out.
She had an hour to get the kidsout or they were going to leave
with a social worker.
So I talked to, you know, formonths.
What the hell?
For months, I was talking to herafterwards, and she and her
three kids were living in hermother's living room.
I had a

SPEAKER_00 (39:50):
lady give me the same story just the other day.
Came right by my house.
Said, Theo, what do I do?
I got sewage coming upunderneath the house.
Is it your house?
I go, yeah, it's my house, butit's their connection.
And my kids are all sick.
I go, well, you're not drinkingthe water, are you?
She goes, no, but it'sunderneath my house.

SPEAKER_01 (40:12):
Residents are suffering every consequence that
the hedge fund owner should besuffering.
And it's being taken down andout on the people who actually
live there who are fighting tohave them comply with fixing
everything around there.

(40:33):
Well,

SPEAKER_04 (40:34):
I think the other thing to just keep in mind is
while the evictions anddisplacement is kind of the most
dramatic the most dramaticstories often.
Um, the thing that I think thisbusiness model kind of counts on
is the fact that people will doalmost anything to keep a roof
over their heads.

(40:54):
And so sometimes it's a matterof driving, you know, you drive
through a pristine looking park,beautiful pool, beautiful,
everything.
And, and, and then you talk tosome people and someone says, my
85 year old neighbor is livingon, you know,$1,300 a month.
So security is, And...
Yeah, she made a plan and shebought the house with her

(41:16):
remaining assets and she wasable to afford the$400,$450 a
month for the slab of dirtunderneath it that covered the
water and the sewer and thetrash.
But now this other company hascome in and now it's$750 a
month,$800 a month lot rent,plus you're adding on water and
sewer and trash.
And the water sometimesfluctuates between$60 a month

(41:38):
and it'll go up to$200 with noparticular reason.
And we don't know why.
I keep asking about it, but it'sAnd so, you know, you've got
someone who was responsible, didwhat they were supposed to do,
made the plan, you know, allthose sorts of things.
And now they're, you know,having to go to food pantries
and choose between rent andmedicines.
And we hear those stories allthe time, but you don't

(41:59):
necessarily see them becausethey will do whatever it takes
to keep a roof over their head.
Because you can't be 85 andhomeless.
You just can't.

SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
Yeah.

UNKNOWN (42:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (42:09):
Yeah.
It's also interesting how much Ithink the government ends up
subsidizing some of us in wayslike I know where I live and a
lot of people, our water bill,for an example,

SPEAKER_03 (42:23):
we

SPEAKER_02 (42:24):
get charged by the community, our water bill, but
it shows up on our statementevery month as part of our rent.
Now the billing is erroneous.
Sometimes you'll get a$100 bill.
Sometimes you get a$30 bill.
I know people who literally havehad a$1,000 bill.
I had a lady who had a$5,000bill.
Just for the water.
Just for her water.

(42:44):
And instead of the RHPproperties at the time saying,
oh, we made a mistake.
We'll have to fix it.
They took her to court.
over an eviction.
And my point in bringing this upis that there will be times when
people get these ginormous waterbills that they cannot afford,
but since it's counted as theirrent, if they can't pay the full

(43:07):
thing, they'll get a seven-daynotice to quit and they go to
court over an eviction becausetechnically what they couldn't
pay was their water bill.
And if they're lucky, They cancall the DHS, maybe somebody
that can help them on theirrent.
But I think a caveat is thatthese people that are helping,

(43:27):
oftentimes it's the DHS, theydon't realize that they're
paying someone's water bill, anoutrageous water bill that's
erroneous.
But it's included in your rentand you got to do it or you're
going to get evicted.
And so that's just anothertactic that they use to
constantly...

SPEAKER_00 (43:43):
Brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
It's disgusting.
It'll steal your home in aheartbeat.
It's the quickest way.
Basically, they just put theTrojan horse of a faulty water
meter under there, and you don'thave any recourse.

SPEAKER_01 (43:58):
Right.
So it's deliberate.
Oh, yeah.
Allegedly.
Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 (44:04):
Deliberate on purpose, accidental on purpose.

SPEAKER_04 (44:07):
There's something called ancillary revenue.
which I was talking to areporter from one of the
business magazines who wasworking on a story on this.
And he was like, yeah, no,ancillary revenue is something
that they talk pretty openlyabout.
And that can be the unbundlingthat we talked about, where now
you're paying for things thatused to be part of the law rent.

(44:31):
It also goes for kind ofpunitive fees and fines.
So there are some companies thatone of their...
regular practices is to have themanager drive through the park
either once a week or once a daygiving people notices citations
for various rule violations andkeep in mind when these parks

(44:55):
count when these new owners comein you go from having a one-page
lease to having sometimes nolease and just a 14 20 20 to
i've seen a 50 page

SPEAKER_00 (45:06):
list of 14 pages of tiny print that you need like a
microscope to read.

SPEAKER_04 (45:12):
And so you get, so you've got, um, someone, I
talked to someone who had a$75,you know, these are like, you've
got a light, a fee or a finebecause you had a potted plant
on your porch, but there was noplant in it.

SPEAKER_02 (45:25):
That was where I live.
My neighbor.

SPEAKER_04 (45:28):
Because you have a ladder, um, um, Right.

(46:02):
Yeah.
And a lot of times they'll,they'll tack these things on.
I've heard of some, I've heardof some situations.
This isn't quite as commonwhere, you know, you just made
the park manager mad and theytack something on.
I'm good at that.
But oftentimes those, whateverthose fines and fees are, or

(46:22):
the, as, as Pam said, theybecome grounds for eviction.
So, you know, that becomesconsidered part of your rent and
you pay your rent and they justtake it out of the fine first.
Even if that's not technicallylegal where you are, they'll do
it and then leave it for you.
And I think one of the thingsthat doesn't get maybe

(46:45):
appreciated quite as much is thelevel of stress that that puts
on a human being's life.

SPEAKER_01 (46:52):
Yeah.
To

SPEAKER_04 (46:53):
be in a situation where you could lose your home.
Mental

SPEAKER_01 (46:57):
health.
Yeah.
Mental and physical health.
You're constantly in a fight.
You would have to be constantlyin fight mode.
Yeah.
I can't

SPEAKER_00 (47:03):
even imagine a lot of stress.
A lot of people are just turtledup.
They just don't want to denythat this is going on and just
go along and do whatever theycan do until they can't.
It's like I even had somebodyhere.
I said, you got to get anattorney.
You got to get an attorney.
Go here.
Go there.

(47:23):
They're waiting.
They'll help you.
Didn't get an attorney.
Now she's gone.
She's getting evicted.
She had to put her kids with herex, get rid of her animals.
Now she's gone.

SPEAKER_02 (47:35):
Out of fear.
And

SPEAKER_00 (47:38):
I see it every day.
I see the people looking at megoing, what do I do?
I need to work on my car.
That's a problem.
I go, just Don't leave it on thejack so it's obvious.

SPEAKER_01 (47:52):
Yeah, it seems like your kids can't even play in the
yard.

SPEAKER_02 (47:55):
No.

SPEAKER_01 (47:57):
You can't do anything.
They want

SPEAKER_02 (47:59):
us to appear like we don't live here is basically
what it is.
Everything has to be pristineand perfect as if nobody lives
here.
From 8 to 5, Monday throughFriday, apparently, is what we
joke about.
And the only

SPEAKER_03 (48:15):
purpose is to get

SPEAKER_02 (48:18):
you to leave.
The only purpose is so that theycan run around with their rural
reminders.
And mind you, some parks likemine, they don't keep up their
end of the bargain by any means.
We're talking, they won't keepthe lawns mowed, but they'll
write up someone in between tounload lawns.

(48:38):
for having theirs unmowed.
You know, it's just, it's petty.
It's ridiculous.
Leaves.
Yeah.
Trash in yards.
They'll let a blighted home thatthe entire home is full of
trash.
Rats included.
Raccoons sometimes, you know,cockroaches, mice, squatters,

(48:59):
even sometimes we've dealt withthat.
And then the person across thestreet gets, gets a rule
reminder that their shed door isaskew.
It's ridiculous.
It is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 (49:11):
We had a blight at home sitting next to us for
almost 10 years.
And they were just giving us thefinger about why they weren't
going to remove it.
We made them remove like 50others working with the
township.
And this was like one of thelast to go.

SPEAKER_04 (49:28):
Yeah.
I think that a lot of what theydo has multiple...
sort of multiple benefits forthem and costs for everyone
else.
So the, the huge lists of rules,it's a, it's a source of
ancillary revenue for fees.
It's also a way to keep peoplescared and from speaking up.
And then, you know, there's a,there's at least a, a, you know,

(49:51):
well, we're going to anythingthey can do to quote, improve
the aesthetics, make things,make something look very like,
vanilla and uniform, I thinkthey see that as raising the
curb appeal and sale value ofthe property.
Or

SPEAKER_01 (50:09):
raising rents, right?
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (50:12):
absolutely.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 (50:14):
We had to change the siding on the home that is a
HUD-approved home, and actuallythat's That's not allowed.
And then they were also saying,oh, everything's got to be
painted a certain color, yetthey don't paint any of their
properties that color.

SPEAKER_01 (50:29):
It's like the worst HOA on the planet.
I

SPEAKER_04 (50:37):
think at one point we did actually see someone who
was putting in rules about whatcolor your curtains had to be.
Actually, inside the home thatyou own.
Oh, yeah.
Or, you know, charging a pet feefor a cat, an indoor cat that
you own in a house that you own.
I mean, that's perfectly common.
That's all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 (50:57):
So they're charging you.
They're charging the homeowner.
So the person owns the home, andthey're paying the lot rent, and
they are being charged a pet feeto have their own pet in their
own home.

SPEAKER_02 (51:12):
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (51:13):
What the hell?

SPEAKER_02 (51:15):
Everyone.
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (51:20):
My mind is blown here, you guys.
Like, truly, my mind is blown.

SPEAKER_00 (51:24):
They didn't understand they were just a cell
in a spreadsheet.
Right.
They weren't a real

SPEAKER_01 (51:29):
person.

UNKNOWN (51:29):
Yeah.
No, don't.

SPEAKER_02 (51:32):
My mind's

SPEAKER_01 (51:32):
blown.
How are y'all doing?
Like, how are y'all doing?
Like, how are you going throughevery day?
I would have lost my mind.

SPEAKER_00 (51:39):
This is my uniform.

SPEAKER_02 (51:41):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (51:41):
We're at war.

SPEAKER_02 (51:44):
We're like the only ones, barely the only ones, too,
that even, you know, everyone isso afraid to speak out.
I'm the only one really where Ilive that will speak out because
the fear of retaliation and allthese rule reminders and oh my
goodness,

SPEAKER_01 (52:04):
it's maddening.
Where are the politicians?
Because, you know, Theo sent mea letter and I'm going to say
her name here.
Emily Am I pronouncing thatcorrectly?
Dievendorf.
Dievendorf.
She's a state representative inthe 77th District.
To me, this is a form letter.
And, you know, it goes back towhat you were saying, Paul, that
some of them seem to care, buttheir hands are tied.

(52:26):
Well,

SPEAKER_04 (52:30):
I just want to...
To the point where...
I don't want to jump on one...
I think there's

SPEAKER_01 (52:34):
a particularly rough situation there.
No, it's just because that's theletter I received, so it's the
one that I'm focusing on.
It's just...
I think it's, to me, it's justsaving face.
It's like, yeah, I care, but Idon't care at the same time.
And perhaps she does.
I'm not going to put words intoher mouth.
But it seems to me withpoliticians, too, and this is my

(52:55):
opinion, I will say that outloud, that they're more
concerned with being electedthan actually helping their
constituents as well.
And so there's like adouble-edged sword here, like
being stuck into the guts of allof you.
Like, where do you, you know,we're going to talk about policy
in the next one, but where doyou go from here?
I

SPEAKER_00 (53:14):
make it simple.
See what the shirt says?
It doesn't say MH care.
It doesn't say MH talk.
It doesn't say MH think.
It doesn't say MH study.
It says action.
I think a lot of politicians buyinto

SPEAKER_01 (53:28):
the stigma too.
What are you doing

SPEAKER_02 (53:29):
outside of policy?

SPEAKER_01 (53:31):
You think they fall to the stigma, you think?
They

SPEAKER_02 (53:34):
fall into the stigma too.
Some of them most certainly, Ithink they do.
I

SPEAKER_04 (53:39):
have to say, I think that the team, Pam and Theo and
the other 25 to 60 leaderswho've been actively working
with legislators have made ahuge difference.
Two and a half years ago, whenwe met with state legislators
about what was going on,oftentimes their reaction was,

(54:01):
Oh my God, I didn't, I had noidea that this was happening.

SPEAKER_01 (54:05):
Yeah.
This isn't being reported onnearly enough.
Like

SPEAKER_04 (54:07):
at this point, unless we're talking with a
brand new legislator who wasjust elected and, you know, it
just started office in January.
Those are the only people whoare now saying, Oh my gosh, I
never knew that this washappening.
Um, basically everyone else.
And that's because again, um,Theo and Pam and the others, I

(54:31):
think over the last year and ahalf or so, met with about 114
legislators, offices, some ofthem 24 times.
Wow, we're really exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 (54:40):
I am too.
You got that on top of justliving every day dealing with
this, you know, goodness.

SPEAKER_00 (54:48):
We even had a group go down there and hand out water
bottles from different parkswith brown water in it.

SPEAKER_02 (54:54):
They could see all the water, yeah.
Yeah, no one wanted to drink it,did they?

SPEAKER_00 (54:58):
And we had one guy saying, oh, well, I heard that
this is good for you.
Oh, here, take two.

SPEAKER_02 (55:03):
Yeah, iron's good for you.
Someone literally said that.

SPEAKER_04 (55:08):
But to your question, I think there was a
very strong bill package lastyear that came– I think
relatively close to passing.
We had all the votes in thestate Senate and I'm just going
to publicly say it.
It was the former, what weheard, we were not on the phone

(55:28):
call, but

SPEAKER_03 (55:29):
what we heard was

SPEAKER_04 (55:31):
that the former Speaker of the House called the
former Senate Majority Leaderand told him that we did not yet
vote.
have the votes in the Housewhile we were kind of madly, you
know, Pam and others were madlygoing door to door getting those
votes.
And so, you know, I thinkeveryone saw the debacle that
happened at the end of thesession last year.

(55:53):
And this bill got caught up,this bill package got caught up
in that.
But I think there are, I mean,we have had I don't know how you
can't be outraged.

SPEAKER_01 (56:26):
The average person, I don't know how you cannot be
outraged over this.

SPEAKER_00 (56:30):
Some people, it makes it easier because they
feel like they're punching down.
They're thinking, oh, thesepeople deserve it.
These people wanted this.
It's like, no.

SPEAKER_04 (56:41):
I do think it's also important to recognize that the
opposition, the industryassociations, spent something
like$500,000 last year.
It took a lot of money to keepthat from happening.
from going through.
And when we looked at their, youknow, their associations pack, I
think in five years from like2017 to 2022, like their, their

(57:08):
cumulative budget was somethinglike$119,000.
So.
Oh, wow.
So

SPEAKER_01 (57:13):
you like quadrupled it.

SPEAKER_04 (57:16):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (57:17):
I

SPEAKER_04 (57:18):
think we should be getting a commission from the
industry association becausethey're getting a lot of, a lot
of money because of what

SPEAKER_01 (57:24):
we're doing.

UNKNOWN (57:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (57:25):
We'll talk more about the ins and outs of that
policy issue in part two, but Ido want to ask this question
regarding it.
Is that package going to berestructured and brought back?

SPEAKER_04 (57:38):
We're going to have the conversations we're meeting.
Everything's more challenging ina split legislature because
you've got to get Democrats andRepublicans to talk to each
other and agree with each other.
I think this possibly is anissue where we could get some of
that.
What exactly is going to be ableto happen?
I don't know.
But our membership goes acrossthe political spectrum.

SPEAKER_03 (58:03):
Yes.

SPEAKER_04 (58:03):
And we meet with people across the political
spectrum.
So it's not a problem for us.
We have great conversationsacross the political spectrum.
It's the folks in Lansing whohave to learn how to do that
too.

UNKNOWN (58:15):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 (58:16):
Oh, my goodness.
This is just– this is unreal.
You know, and the thing is, iswith something like this, this
affects the housing marketacross the board because mobile
home parks are supposed to besome of the most affordable
homes.
Well,

SPEAKER_00 (58:32):
if it's$2,000 to be able to rent.

SPEAKER_01 (58:35):
Yeah, it's not.
It's not any

SPEAKER_00 (58:37):
longer.
Well, what does that do tosingle-family home prices too?

SPEAKER_01 (58:40):
Right.
Like if that is the starting– ifthat's the entry– Of owning
homes, affordable homes.
No one is going to be able toafford a home here in the very
near future unless you bought it50 years ago and are sitting in
it.
So yeah, where do we go fromhere is the question.

SPEAKER_00 (59:00):
I guess jail because the Supreme Court said it's
illegal to be homeless now.

SPEAKER_01 (59:04):
That's true.
That's true.
You can't win either way you'regoing on

SPEAKER_00 (59:09):
this.
You got to go to the shelter.
Oh, they got nobody in theshelter?
You're going to jail and we'regoing to charge you.
to be out on the street, really.
In New York, it costs$400 anight to put somebody in a
shelter.
Four-star hotels don't cost thatmuch.

SPEAKER_04 (59:25):
Something's wrong.
I think it's important to saythat this isn't that hard to
fix.
This isn't complicated.
It's not complex.
It's simply political will.
It is purely political will.
I mean, even if you want tothink in the most capitalist
terms, you have two sets ofprivate property owners whose

(59:46):
private property is attached.
And right now, one of those setsof private property owners has
absolute power over the other.
So you have two choices.
You either have to putprotections into law to keep
them from abusing that power, oryou have to do something to Make
the power, you know, to even upthe power.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:07):
It's essentially a racket.
It's racketeering.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:10):
Yeah.
Well, the greedy aren't going tostop being greedy.
Like you're not going to,they're not suddenly going to
decide to be altruistic.
Yeah.
They're not going to suddenlydecide to care.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:18):
You know, my IV pump or my, my heart, you know,
defibrillator or whatever,either.
It's like these people that arejust profit-motivated.
It's like they don't care aboutperformance.
Wait a minute, that's kind ofimportant.
Your airplane's not going tofall out of the sky or

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:35):
something.
I think it's also important tosay that what these folks were
fighting for last year wouldactually have enshrined
profitability into state law.
So there was no question aboutthe parks being profitable.
So the way that it would haveworked in terms of the rent
gouging was any park could raisethe rents at the rate of

(01:00:56):
inflation without any, with noquestions asked.
And if they had some kind ofexpenses that were actual
expenses in the park, theyneeded to, to, you know, redo
the sewer system.
They need to read, you know,repay the sidewalks, whatever
those kinds of things were, thenthey would just have to go to
the manufactured housingcommission,

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:14):
just come in, open their books,

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:15):
open their books and show, show that the operate like
local operating expenses,capital expenses, and a
reasonable rate of return wererequired this way.
This rent increase.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:26):
And then we can't do anything to stop them.
We just got hammered with

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:30):
rent control.
It's rent control.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:32):
But it was a simple rent justification kind of a
situation that would haveallowed and actually in some
ways maybe incentivized them todo improvements in the
communities.
But then

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:45):
you can raise your rent anyway, no matter what.
That's my point, though.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:49):
If you're allowed to...
raise rents in a mobile homepark at the rate of inflation,
that's kind of insane as well.
That

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:57):
still prices people out.
Now they own the homes and wantto rent them out at exorbitant
rates and treat it like anapartment, yet they're not taxed
on it like an apartment.
They basically are ripping offthe government, too.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:11):
I think the point is, though, that what folks were
asking for was relatively modestand reasonable.
And it was just basicallysaying, yes, communities can't
just raise the rent in order tosend an additional$2 million to
the Singapore Sovereign WealthFund.
It can't just be extractive.
If you need to raise the rentfor something that is actually

(01:02:33):
for the park itself, a lot ofresidents that I talked to One
of the first things people willsay is, well, if you can raise
my rent, I'm okay with that ifyou're actually going to spend
it here.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:44):
know I am.
Hey, will you open the pool?
If I could see these things,could I have safe drinking
water?
We used to have a

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:51):
nice kitchen.
Really?
Did you not have your own water?
With a griddle and everything inour community center.
We used to have weddingreceptions and birthday parties
and christenings and whatnot inthere, like crickets.
actually rats.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:05):
Well, and there was also, I mean, I think, I think
to give a little bit of a, Ithink a lot of the people that I
talked to when they talk aboutthe parks having been purchased,
they're like, Oh, you know, themom, when I rented from a mom
and pop, when we had the lotrent from a mom and pop, it was
$350 a month and it coveredwater and sewer and trash.
And then this company came inand within four years they've

(01:03:27):
doubled it.
And now it's, and then they're,they've added those on top as
fees.
We did go and visit aresident-owned cooperative in
Clinton Township, and they havea move-in fee that is to join
the co-op,$2,500.
Oh, my gosh.

(01:03:50):
But that's part of the movingprice.
But once they do that, insteadof lot rent, they have something
called their co-op fee, themonthly co-op fee, which covers
water, sewer, snow plowing, andI believe trash.
And that was$125 a month.
And that was it.
I've never heard.
It's$125 a month, period.

(01:04:10):
And I've driven through there acouple of times and talked to
people out on their porches andthey love the community.
It's run by the residents.
So there are models and clearlyyou could operate a park that
way.
That gives you a sense of thescale of what's being extracted.
Because

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:23):
it's not debt leverage.
Yeah.
It's not debt leverage to drivethe price up so we can sell it
so we can get a higher comp sonow so-and-so can buy it so we
can make a$3 million profit onit.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:35):
Yeah.
And we're going to talk aboutthat in part two because we're
going to talk about what can bedone differently.
And there are examples, verygood examples out there of how
to come out of this.
Unfortunately, I think it isgoing to require laws.
to force this.
And we will talk about thepolicy side of that as well in
the second one.
But man, is this an issue?

(01:04:58):
Holy moly.
Like I, you know, this

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:01):
is where your aunt or your uncle or your grandpa or
your grandma might be living.
And do you really want to seethem preyed upon like this?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:08):
Yeah.
Half a million people of ourpopulation in Michigan alone is
facing this, you know, and notto mention across the country.
It's just kind of obscene howlike, Yeah, you're playing with
people's lives and you'replaying with public health.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:24):
Destroying what can really be like a gem of a
community.
When these people get to reallyknow each other and we look out
after each other in here.
And that's like really theideal.
That's what you want in acommunity.
But you basically handed theseguys the blowtorch to destroy
it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:42):
Right.
And they actually have theresources to do it the right way
is what kills me.
These private equity people,it's not like they're the mom
and pop owners from back in theday that didn't have all these
resources available.
These people have anything theycould need, which is evidenced
by Cambio coming in andimmediately they can pour

(01:06:03):
thousands upon thousands intoall of a sudden we can get
streetlights now.
But that's because they wantpeople to come in and buy the
new homes that they're bringingin here.
They can pour in thousands andthousands and thousands upon
thousands to do that, but theydon't really want to have us
have safe drinking water.
They don't want to fix thesewer.
It's just so disheartening andmaddening.

(01:06:27):
Something that came out recentlyis if you don't want to mow your
lawn this summer, you can pay, Ithink it's$80 a month to have
Cambio mow your lawn.
And they're trying to enticepeople to sign up for this
program because what they'regoing to be able to do with the

(01:06:49):
extra$80 a month that they'regoing to earn from people
signing up for this, we couldhave something new and really
cool in our community.
I mean, are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:58):
A company store.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:00):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:00):
You have to buy your groceries from the company
store.
This

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:03):
is

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:04):
what they're doing.
And they'll pay you in papermoney from Monopoly or
something.
Well, still

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:09):
don't address the water.
I can hardly stand it at times.
I can't.
How do they sleep at

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:15):
night?
One of the things that we oftenhear from the other side on the
big infrastructure issues is,you know, oh, my gosh.
we inherited these issues fromthe previous owner.
Or they didn't care to look.
And we always say, it's not likeyour great-aunt Bessie died and

(01:07:39):
left you a mobile home park.
You're a multi-million dollarreal estate investment company.
If you don't have the competenceto check,

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:50):
you

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:53):
probably don't belong operating...
you know, housing for vulnerable

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:57):
populations.
Do us all a favor and move on.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:00):
Yeah, that was like, we were talking about licensing
a while back and Lara and such.
And I go, there's no test tosee.
I had to take a test fordriver's license.
I even had to take a test to bea brake mechanic, but there's no
test.
Oh, do you know the law?
You have to take a test foralmost

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:16):
everything now.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:18):
Do you have a test?
Do they even check your ID?
Oh, are you really Mr.
Duck?
Donald Duck?
Is it?
That's what you wrote on yourapplication.
I didn't see your ID.
So, you know, that could be yourLLC.
It could be big quack LLC.
That's so true.
It is true.
I can show you examples.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:38):
Yeah, that's crazy.
You

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:41):
should at least be able to know who's coming in to
do the pillaging.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:47):
Know your pillagers.

UNKNOWN (01:08:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:49):
Oh my goodness.
Well, thank you guys for allyour willingness to come on
today and talk about this andreally starting to expose what's
going on.
This is a larger conversationthat we're going to continue for
sure.
Thank you.
We have part two that we'redoing next week.
And like I said, we're going totalk about the policy side of it
there and some solutions andwhat some organizations are even

(01:09:13):
doing in this field to changeall of this and to create...
Which every park needs to be runlike these, I think, personally.
A little precursor to what'scoming up.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:26):
Closer you get to the street, to the who lives
there, that's the key.
Because nobody has more stake init than the actual people living
there.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:35):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And y'all matter.
It blows my mind.
It truly does.
My mind is blown with this topicbecause it is...
It is horrific to me.
It's horrific.
This is the chipper coming forall of us.
Yeah, but affordable housing isan issue to begin with.

(01:09:57):
And because of predatory lendersand buyers and hedge funds and
Wall Street.
But I think you all get theabsolute brunt of...
I don't even know like theproper term to say of like just
how they treat people.
Like they're complete and utterdisregard because you all don't

(01:10:18):
have a lot of options.
And it costs so much for you tomove your mobile home to
anywhere else.
Tens of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:30):
If they can be.
Yeah, exactly.
Some of them just don't fallapart, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:34):
But a lot of people can't afford to move them to
begin with.
So you're stuck.
You're stuck fighting.
Well, Theo and Pam, I commendthe two of you for fighting.
Keep up the good fight.
Seriously.
I am sure it is exhausting.
On top of just living in anenvironment like that, that's
exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:53):
Almost a year ago today, Pam was at my birthday
party where we were protesting.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:59):
Yes, we were.
That was your birthday partyprotest.
It was a birthday party protest.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:04):
Nice, nice.
All right, guys, thank you somuch.
And we're going to keep on this.
This is something I want to keeptalking about.
Thanks, Tamara.
And as things move forward,we'll keep updating.
Thank you so much

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:17):
for having me.
It's a honor to be here.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:19):
Absolutely.

UNKNOWN (01:11:21):
Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:22):
Thanks for listening to Pulse on Politics.
If this episode moved you,challenged you, or lit a fire
under you, share it, rate it,and keep the conversation going.
Visit us at GreatLakesPulse.comto read our latest magazine,
where we celebrate the GreatLakes Basin region with amazing
adventures, stunningphotography, high-profile

(01:11:44):
content, and more.
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And don't forget to visit ourlove where you live Stay
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