According to the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) website resources section is their declared: “2024 MHI Policy Objectives.” Five different categories are mention on the date (8.10.2024) that this fact-check and related analysis occurred. Those five areas of MHI’s policy objectives focus are as follows. 1) Energy Standards for Manufactured Housing. 2) Financing. 3) Zoning. 4) HUD Code. 5) Land-Lease Communities. There is no specific mention on that page of any effort to improve the industry’s public image, although perhaps that may be tangentially implied by the statement: “Educate policymakers about the benefits of land-lease communities.” Under zoning, they used the word “preemption” but failed to say the phrase that MHI’s CEO Lesli Gooch and others have themselves said is important, namely: “enhanced preemption.” Nor did they link “preemption” to the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000. Before diving into a deeper critique of MHI’s so-called “2024 MHI Policy Objectives,” it is only fair to give their statement verbatim as they are posted at this time. Note that at the end of their policy statement their own website says under “Keep Exploring” and “Related Resources” this: “Sorry, we couldn’t find any related resource.” So, for some visitors to their website these few words that follow would be their impression of what MHI’s stances are.
As it is baseball season: first, some warmup items fresh from the MHI website. Then ‘the pitch’ will begin in Part II. “Weasel words” will be explored in Part II.
Ensure the federal government’s energy efficiency standards for manufactured housing are realistic and keep homes affordable.
Ensure HUD is the sole regulator of manufactured housing construction standards, including energy.
Financing
Ensure federal financing programs that support homeownership include manufactured housing.
Support state associations with legislative and regulatory advocacy impacting consumer financing.
Zoning
Include manufactured housing in federal efforts to eliminate exclusionary local land-use policies.
Strengthen HUD’s policy and engagement regarding zoning and preemption.
Support efforts at the state and local level to overcome zoning and land-use barriers.
HUD Code
Finalize pending HUD Code updates and ensure a more regular cadence for HUD Code updates.
Delete the requirement in federal law that manufactured homes are only those built on a permanent chassis and ensure changes to HUD Code and state statutes to facilitate a regulatory process for new home types built to the federal code.
Land-Lease Communities
Educate policymakers about the benefits of land-lease communities.
Ensure that federal actions to support affordable housing include support for land-lease communities.
Combat efforts to impose national landlord tenant policies.
Support state associations with pending legislative and regulatory proposals that impact land-lease communities.
Date Published
March 20, 2024
Keep Exploring
Related Resources
Sorry, we couldn’t find any related resource.”
Part II – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
#1) There are smaller and larger problems with the above. First, let’s note that while MHI claims in the above that those are their policy priorities, the so-called MHI Action Center page on 8.10.2024 has no action steps available for members to take to advance any of those so called “priorities.” Oops.
What kind of “priority” requires no action?
Next, there will be a mix of some smaller disconnects between their words and claims, which will work into the larger concerns further below.
#2) Inconsistency of Information on MHI’s Website and Documents Continues.
Since MHI rebuilt their website about a year ago, even though it appears that there is less content available to the public than was previously posted there, what information is given is incontinence.
a) For example, the say on their “About Us” page that MHI Executive Committee member “Cody Pearce” is with: “Cascade Financial Services, LLC.” However, on another linked page, MHI said that Pearce is with Yes! Communities. Which is it?
c) As that previously explored MHI document noted above and linked here partially itemized, there are several disconnects between MHI claims about both their own organization and about supposed ‘facts’ about the manufactured housing industry. As a prior fact check by MHProNews of MHI’s website reflected, at one point, MHI had several of their board members posted twice. Didn’t anyone at MHI check that once the website provider/manager said they were finished? Are sloppy work and contradictory details too inconsequential for MHI leaders to be bothered with? Are they so busy working towards those policy objectives that they can’t be bothered to inspect their own website? If this is their work product on their own website, why is it surprising that the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 and its “enhanced preemption” provision, which Kevin Clayton (Clayton Homes) and William “Bill” Boor (Cavco Industries – see #7 below) on behalf of MHI said they want enforced isn’t being enforced approaching a quarter of a century after it was enacted? What precisely is occurring at MHI? What do MHI leaders do ‘for the industry’ with their time?
d) If MHI team members and leadership can’t be bothered by getting the limited information on their own website double checked and consistent, why should industry members and outsiders looking in think of them as a reliable source for information? If MHI can’t get information on their own pared down and limited platform consistent and accurate, then why should it be a surprise that they can’t, won’t or don’t achieve enforcement of the two key laws that they and MHARR worked to get into law so many years ago for the benefit of industry growth? Why is it a surprise that manufactured housing is operating at about 1/4th of the level that it did in the mid-to-late 1990s?
e) That MHI leaders read our publication on a regular basis is a matter of record. Apparently, perhaps due in part to years of fact-checks by MHProNews and our MHLivingNews sister site, MHI will ‘fix’ an error after MHProNews reports it enough times. Plus, there are the periodic pokes by the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) at MHI’s action/behavior (and/or the lack thereof). What that magic number of times that MHI must be publicly shown their errors before they act to fix something, it is difficult to say, because it is also inconsistent in our experience. From little to significant details, a percentage of what MHI says is contradicted by their own website and/or by the statements of some of their leading members.
And that inconsistency with some of their leading members may be a problem for the association, the board, and their senior leadership for reasons addressed in some of the reports found in the headlines for the week in review that follow. But before pivoting to those headlines, previously reviewed were other aspects of the MHI website that are linked below.
That noted, let’s go deeper before delving into weasel words.
4) MHI claims that Molly Boyle is their media contact. But with some 10 or more direct outreaches by MHProNews to Boyle, she has yet to respond a single time with any substantive reply. What sort of media contact is she anyway?
Screen capture is from MHI website on the date shown. Base image of Molly Boyle with FPMGI.com and apparently MHI’s designated news media contact is also from the MHI website, but other elements of the collage are added by MHProNews. Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report and others on MHProNews can be clicked to expand. Click the image and follow the prompts. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
In fairness to Boyle, former MHI senior vice president and general counsel, Rick Robinson, at least publicly acknowledged in front of dozens of manufactured housing industry professionals in response to an inquiry by this writer for MHProNews that: “Tony, I will not be taking questions from the press.” Perhaps Boyle is only supposed to answer question from select news media?
5) As context and disclosure for newcomers and longer-term readers alike, MHI in years past provided items, had this writer and others doing work for MHProNews as speakers at MHI events. MHI and/or MHI members paid MHProNews to provide marketing. Leaders at MHI publicly thanked and acknowledged MHProNews for our pro-industry, accuracy, and pro-growth efforts. Our editorial stance toward ethical business practices and sustainable growth has never wavered. But as MHProNews began to become aware of the fact that MHI at various times seemed to say something at odds with often serious information, MHI’s stance toward this platform arguably grew cooler, and cold: reportedly to the point where an MHI-member/then surrogate encouraged a boycott of this pro-growth, pro-ethical business practices platform. Keep in mind that a boycott can be an antitrust violation, more on that and how it plays into modern manufactured housing and America more broadly is discussed in an article further below in the headlines in review. That segue noted, MHI apparently began to noticeably avoid accountability and explanations that were once promptly given when an MHProNews inquiry was made to an MHI leader. These were not only emails or other direct communications, they were publicly manifested too. Examples of that were documented below.
6) While there are numbers of significant issues that MHARR, some of MHI’s own past and current members, and others have raised with MHI (that they appear to routinely ignore), perhaps the single most important issue is that of zoning and placement barriers. MHARR has named it one of the top two, in a report linked here. Notorious but prominent MHI member Frank Rolfe has said that he blames MHI for the current state of low production in the industry. One of the top 5 producers of HUD Code manufactured homes in the U.S. at this time, an MHI member, has said that zoning barriers are the single biggest headwind that manufactured housing faces.
“Look, the biggest headwind of this – in this entire industry is where to put these [HUD Code manufactured] homes.” – Duncan Bates, President and CEO of MHI member Legacy Housing (LEGH).
7) It has been said that MHI is composed of “insiders” and “outsiders.” Legacy, while a MHI member, is per sources deemed an “outsider.” In the “insider” category is William “Bill” Boor, CEO of Cavco Industries. Boor has stated in formal remarks to Congress a year ago in far more specific language than is found on MHI’s website in Part I #1 above the need for HUD to consistently enforce the MHIA’s enhanced preemption provision. But the question must be asked: are MHI and Boor merely posturing? Or are they sincere when they say that they want enhanced preemption and the MHIA fully enforced?
Also, on the so-called “insider” list at MHI are member companies Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), which has their COO Patrick Waite on their “executive committee” of their main board of directors, and Sun Communities, which also has a board seat. ELS and Sun have openly stated in their investor relations pitches the point that a lack of new developments in the 21st century and “Nimbyism” are useful to their business models.
When prominent MHI member, Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) says that “almost no new supply” is a “strategic advantage for ELS” that merits a closer look by independent manufactured housing professionals, public officials, shareholders, affordable housing advocates, and possible plaintiffs’ attorneys, among others. Why? Because MHI claims that they are working to get “enhanced preemption” under the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act (MHIA) into effect. If so, then ELS is apparently against that enforcement. Under Supply Constraints, ELS lists NIMBY and restricted zoning and regulations at the state and federal levels. If restricted zoning and NIMBYism vanished, per ELS’ stated investment thesis, that would be a disadvantage to their stated scheme. ELS has long held a board seat on MHI’s “executive committee” on their board of directors. https://www.manufacturedhomepronews.com/buying-or-renting-manufactured-homes-greater-value-compared-to-other-housing-options-supply-constrained-asset-class-conflicts-els-1q-2023-ir-pitch/
Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report and others on MHProNews can be clicked to expand. Click the image and follow the prompts. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
8) You can’t square those two opposing stances by key figures involved at MHI. One the one side are remarks by Cavco’s Boor, now MHI’s chairman, and MHI CEO Gooch are both on record saying they want to see enhanced preemption enforced. On the other hand, are those remarks by ELS and Sun Communities.
9) Because MHI won’t respond directly, either to MHProNews, nor to MHARR, nor is it known that MHI has responded to concerns raised by MHI members such as Duncan Bates/Legacy Housing and Rolfe, one must look to behavior instead. And the behavior at MHI speaks volumes.
10) To illustrate the problem, and the behaviors/actions/inactions involved, consider these Q&As with left-leaning Bing’s AI powered Copilot.
Copilot, with respect to the manufactured housing industry. There are two key national trade groups that represent professional interests, correct? They are the Manufactured Housing Institute, which is the larger of the two and says that they represent the interests of “all segments” of manufactured housing. Then there is the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR), which plainly say that they represent producers. So, “the Institute” represents production and post-production, while MHARR represents independent producers (production), correct? Duncan Bates, CEO of Manufactured Housing Institute member Legacy Housing has said during an earnings call that: “Look, the biggest headwind of this – in this entire industry is where to put these homes.” Several organizations have identified zoning barriers as important to limiting manufactured home industry production, including, but not limited to, the Urban Institute, Lincoln Institute, Harvard’s JCHS, and the Niskanen Center for housing policy, among others, correct? The Manufactured Housing Institute says that they want “enhanced preemption” under the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (a.k.a.: MHIA, 2000 Reform Act, 2000 Reform Law, etc.), right? But is there any evidence that they have publicly threatened, much less sued, to get “enhanced preemption” enforced? Provide some facts and analysis on the importance of that, correct, confirm, or clarify as needed, and link results.
Certainly! Let’s dive into the details of the manufactured housing industry and the trade groups involved.
The Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (MHIA) aims to enhance the regulation of manufactured housing. One key provision is preemption, which ensures that state and local regulations don’t unduly restrict the placement of manufactured homes.
MHI advocates for “enhanced preemption” under the MHIA. This means strengthening the federal preemption to prevent local zoning laws from impeding the placement of manufactured homes.
However, there isn’t clear evidence that MHI has publicly threatened or sued to enforce enhanced preemption. The importance lies in ensuring that manufactured homes can be sited efficiently and affordably, benefiting both the industry and potential homeowners.
11) Note that in this follow up Q&A, Copilot starts by saying: “You raise an astute observation!” “The gap you’ve identified is indeed significant. While some at MHI advocate for enhanced preemption and more developing, others may prefer the status quo due to their business models or other reasons.”
Copilot, while I’d broadly agree with your remarks, the call with Duncan Bates is not found on the Manufactured Housing Institute, website is it? That said, perhaps as signficant is the fact that Equity LifeStyle Properties and Sun Communities, two prominent MHI members, have said in their respective investor relations statements that a lack of new developing and even “Nimbyism” is part of the ‘strategic advantage’ to their business model, correct? So, there is an obvious gap between some at MHI claiming they want enhanced preemption enforced and more developing, while others at MHI openly or tacitly seem to want the status quo for their own reasons. Isn’t there ample evidence to suppor that concern? Correct, confirm, or clarify as needed and link results.
You raise an astute observation! Let’s delve into the nuances of this situation:
Duncan Bates and the MHI Call:
While the specific call with Duncan Bates isn’t directly available on the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) website, it’s essential to consider that earnings calls and discussions may occur outside of official MHI channels.
Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) and Sun Communities:
Both Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) and Sun Communities, prominent MHI members, have acknowledged the challenges related to new development and “Nimbyism” (Not In My Backyard).
The concept of “enhanced preemption” under the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (MHIA) is crucial. It aims to prevent local zoning laws from hindering manufactured home placement.
The gap you’ve identified is indeed significant. While some at MHI advocate for enhanced preemption and more developing, others may prefer the status quo due to their business models or other reasons.
Evidence and Concerns:
There’s ample evidence to support your concern. The tension between advocating for enhanced preemption and maintaining existing advantages within the industry warrants attention.
Balancing the interests of different stakeholders—manufacturers, community operators, and homeowners—is a complex challenge.
12) There is more to know about all of these issues. Several salient points are explored in various articles linked below in the headlines for this Sunday’s MHVille week in review. But for now, it is obvious that some paltering, posturing, and what could arguably call propaganda and gaslighting, perhaps to mask possible antitrust and other market-manipulating allegations, are involved.
13) This is now an appropriate place to do a focused look at the headline topic of weasel words. Some definitions are in order.
a) Dictionary.com says —
“Weasel words is an Americanism that paints a vivid picture of cowardly deception.”
b) That same source also says:
Weasel Words And Other Ways We Avoid Telling The Truth
c) The American Management Association said about weasel words:
Weasel is language that sounds wishy-washy, even sneaky.
d) The popular Hubspot Blog explained weasel words this way:
“Weasel words” are a colloquial term for words or phrases used to avoid being forthright. Weasel words are used when the speaker wants to make it seem like they’ve given a clear answer to a question or made a direct statement, when actually they’ve said something inconclusive or vague.
f) MHI has posted a Code of Conduct for meetings, see more on that in a report linked here. When MHI claims that they want to ‘build consensus,’ isn’t it more accurate to say that the insider at MHI want the association to do their bidding, while all others get to pay dues and perhaps may someday get to the privilege of becoming the source of an acquisition for one of the consolidators?
g) In MHI’s remarks quoted in Part I, MHI claims that they want more and better financing, a better image and understanding among policy makers for land lease communities, and better treatment by zoning officials. But those phrases just window dressing? Is MHI posturing? Aren’t they using weasel words and paltering? Isn’t it a big show designed to mask the transformation of what MHI was during the Chris Stinebert era of that trade group vs. what they have become since then?
h) Since MHProNews began to expose MHI’s 990 statements, some aspects of their 990s and website have evolved. Perhaps it is a coincidence. Or perhaps, as their paltering and weasel words are exposed, they feel the need to shift their deceptive and misleading language used online in order to mitigate possible liability for false, misleading, and deceptive trade action and possible antitrust violations? When AI powered Copilot publicly and repeatedly notes the consistency and persistency of MHARR, and then contrasts that with MHI’s inconsistent, lack of engagement, lack of transparency, apparently deceptive behavior, shouldn’t those be a warning flags for many about what is occurring (or not occurring, as the case may be) at MHI?
i) In the light of purported and apparent weasel words, when MHI claims on their home page:
Grow your business Get the tools, platform and information you need
j) But under their mission statement they’ve said:
WHY MHI
Mission Statement
MHI is the national trade organization representing all segments of the factory-built housing industry. MHI serves its membership by providing industry research, promotion, education and government relations programs, and by building and facilitating consensus within the industry.
k) Those two remarks from their own website linguistically, and thus legally, ARE NOT CONSISTENT.
l) There are firms like Clayton or Cavco that could by themselves deploy sufficient resources to sue to as needed to get enhanced preemption under the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 and the Duty to Serve Manufactured Housing (see the top Masthead headline in the recap below for more details) consistently and properly enforced. Some of the largest asset management firms in the world have investments in manufactured housing brands that are involved at MHI. There is thus no lack of capital or other potential resources at work in MHVille.
m) Once MHI sued to Department of Energy (DOE) over their energy rule, the apparent duplicity of MHI began to come into greater focus. Almost five years have elapsed since MHARR offered to team up with an MHI state association (and by implication, MHI – see link below) to sue to get enhanced preemption enforced. MHARR said, no takers. That’s revealing. That’s the apparent reality. The rest appears to be window dressing, posturing, paltering, gaslighting, and yes: weasel words.
14) Unfortunately, millions of Americans who bother to pay attention to politics have become accustomed to the fact that many (not all) politicians may say one thing but do another. But what more Americans, and those curious about why manufactured housing is underperforming during an affordable housing crisis, may wonder is why an industry that should be several times its current size is struggling instead. As years of fact-checks and commentary by MHProNews – plus the above and linked – have revealed, MHI can’t get consistency on their own website and their own documents. They are apparently duplicitous and lazy too. No one would care if MHI used weasel words, if the industry was producing 500,000 or more new homes per year. But the industry isn’t doing that is it?
16) It is absolutely necessary to look into the rearview mirror and see the difference over time between what MHI leaders claims and what MHI and their leadership have done. There must be good reasons why MHI has scrubbed their website of several of their own past presidents/CEOs, their own supposed history, and even scrubbed the name one of their own award winners who periodically dares mention that MHI exists to serve the insiders he called the “big boys.” Potentially interesting items and people once found on their website are POOF! GONE! Wouldn’t Orwell’s Big Brother Be Proud of their Memory Hole! Even a Harvard researcher they touted years ago is now gone! Why? Apparently, because that researcher – Eric Belsky – dared say that the manufactured home industry would within the decade surpass conventional housing. My God! We [i.e.: MHI leaders] better not have anyone on the MHI website saying something so scandalous to the interests of industry consolidators as that! But instead of surpassing conventional housing, by the magic of moats, ‘sabotage’ monopoly tactics, and the wonder of memory holed information, MHI can weave an ever-changing fable that even Copilot mocked in a fanciful way in “Hit the Ball and Drag Jack.”
Presidents and CEOs Chris Stinebert, Gail Cardwell, and Thayer Long. These are three Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) staff leaders that preceded the tenure of Richard “Dick” Jennison at MHI. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the history of MHI in the late 20th and early 21st century should be asking questions and pressing for answers. Why has MHI culled the names of these prior leaders from the history of their own trade association’s website? What is MHI hiding by hiding those names? Why has MHI culled other documents and records from the public side of their website? Why hasn’t MHI made public the meeting minutes with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that seemed to proceed the creation of the apparently market failed CrossMod homes scheme? Why does MHI continue to press CrossMod® homes when their own members say during earnings calls that the manufactured home market is moving to smaller and lower cost homes?
17) MHProNews could say that we had no idea when some of these reports were published that soon thereafter, they would be eliminated from the MHI website. Poof! Gone! Vanished! Memory Holed!
18) But here on MHProNews, on MHLivingNews, and in their own distinctive way at MHARR, when we publish something, it stays published. Huh, what a crazy thought from MHI’s perspective, right? The voice of Eric Belsky still calls out from the MHI memory hole, from behind their latest cluster of weasel words, deception and misdirection, paltering, and the like to remind the industry of what was supposed to be by the year 2010.
The graphic above and some others can be opened to a larger size in many browsers. Click the image once to open a new window, and then click that image again to see the larger size.
19) And less anyone in MHVille forget, Bill Boor – now chairman of MHI – said something similar not so long ago.
Why is it that MHI leaders can keep dangling these promises of performance without delivering on them?
20) MHI’s insiders can’t have it both ways.
By carefully tracking the various statements and claims, past or present, by various MHI linked operations, MHProNews is able to demonstrate the apparent disconnects between their prior claims and their later deeds. It is often comparing past claims by the same source with more recent ones that disconnects appear and prior claims are revealed to be inaccurate. Knowing those past and more recent claims, who is and is not reliable, is a potentially important advantage in exploring legal, regulatory and other issues in MHVille.
For those who know authentic vs. weaponized American history, there is indeed a series of attempts to ‘fool’ the people on a range of issues. That being so, is it any surprise that similarly bold efforts to ‘fool’ most professionals and the broader public about manufactured housing’s realities also exists?
There is an evidence-based case to be made that MHI insiders want the industry to underperform so that consolidation of the industry can continue. These are not mere speculation, notable MHI companies and their leaders have said as much about consolidation. Someone can argue that they are foolish to hold those views, but that is a different topic entirely. Sam and Eugene Landy may need private security guards, if they don’t already have them. More than triple the number of communities? That’s heretical to MHI insiders!
The insiders can’t keep their stories straight, because there are apparently too many ways that they are violating various laws and regulations if they do.
More facts, examples, and illustrations of this vexing pattern are found in the reports for the week in review.
Don’t miss today’s postscript.
With no further adieu, here are the headlines for the week in review from 8.4 to 8.11.2024.
What’s New on MHLivingNews
There is a club. Odds are over 99 to 1 that you aren’t in it.
Tip: If you want to laugh, and don’t mind the R-rated language, scroll down to the video and watch it before you read the article. Crude, but the live audience howled with laughter.
It would be unfair to say that everything that has gone wrong for manufactured housing is due to MHI. There are a conflation of factors involved, as MHProNews has reported for years. Several of the reports above make that point clear. But what makes the scenario with MHI vexing and pernicious is precisely because MHI claims to be ‘on the industry’s side,’ when they apparently are on their own side. More specifically, they are on the side of the consolidators of manufactured housing and their very narrow business model thesis that is geared toward industry underperformance in order to establish apparent barriers of entry, persistence, and exit within manufactured housing for the stated purpose to consolidate a fragmented industry.
What was once a matter of hypothesis and speculation are now a matter of well documented records, behaviors, and growing evidence.
Businesses that endured for decades, sometimes for a half-a-century or more, vaporized when confronted with the weasel words and related behaviors of insiders and outsiders alike.
The solution to the affordable housing crisis is fairly simple. More homes of all kinds are needed, including millions of more HUD Code manufactured homes. The math is difficult, if not impossible, to refute.
It takes several hours to put together a report like this one. For regular readers, our reports tend to be more detailed, so that no one can honestly say that there is a lack of evidence. The problem isn’t a lack of evidence at all. The problem is that there is so much evidence of wrongdoing, conflicts of interest, failure of various board members and entity leaders to do what is right that it seems almost unbelievable.
That is why gaslighting and weasel words are needed by the perps involved. For the sake of their own hides, they must posture effort, otherwise, the con job would be exposed.
We have noted before, and now do so again, that while some in MHVille appear to be corrupt, that should not be construed as to implying that all are corrupt.
MHProNews once more invites board or senior staff leaders at MHI, their designated spokesperson Molly Boyle, or there outside attorney David Goch to respond publicly to these allegations and evidence. But don’t hold your breath. Nevertheless, if they surprise us with their wisdom and words, we’ll plan to share them as we did those of the MassMHA in the Parakeet Communities report above.
Goch is a paid mouthpiece for MHI. This pull quote from a letter from Goch is fascinating. On the one hand, Goch says that MHI is working for the interests of all and they want all points of view. But then, Goch threatens in writing a then MHI member who dared question the association. They cannot have it both ways. Part of the irony is that in hindsight, as the evidence mounts, it becomes obvious that MHI has postured efforts for some 20+ years, since the start of the Berkshire era of manufactured housing began. Coincidence? Or just part of a broader plan that has benefited a few at great cost and harm to the many? ICYMI, or need a reminder, this message quoted above was to another SECO linked figure, Spencer Roane. https://www.manufacturedhomepronews.com/manufactured-housing-institute-mhi-outside-attorney-david-gochs-statement-to-angry-threatening-member-speaks-volumes-plus-sunday-weekly-mhville-headlines-in-review/
It isn’t just manufactured housing that is steadily being consolidated. America is also being steadily monopolized. See the Saturday report above for some details, because that battle is evolving. Voices on both sides of the left-right divide in the U.S. often agree on that point that monopolization of various markets, including manufactured housing, is a vexing reality. But the problem isn’t agreeing on the facts, because the evidence is there. The problem is having the willpower to deal with those facts. Because as matters currently operate, some believe that they benefit from the status quo. The powers that be are happy to pay figureheads to do their bidding. That’s why weasel words exist.
Programming notice. We have entered into what some call “earnings season” for several publicly traded companies in manufactured housing. In the days ahead, several firms from huge to more modest in size are going to be examined. Their own statements, in their own words, will be unpacked with expert analysis and commentary.
Stay tuned to the one and only source for consistently accurate, in depth, fact-packed reports with analysis and expert commentary into the often-curious world of manufactured housing. MHProNews may report the weasel words of others, but here we have consistently provided the truth, and exposed the deceptions, in hopefully sufficient detail so people can see reality and act accordingly. ###
Our son has grown quite a bit since this 12.2019 photo. All on Capitol Hill were welcoming and interested in our manufactured housing industry related concerns. But Congressman Al Green’s office was tremendous in their hospitality. Our son’s hand is on a package that included the Constitution of the United States, bottled water, and other goodies.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
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