In its Washington Update, the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) is seeking federal support for public and private chattel lending to expand capital, liquidity, and number of lenders for the low to moderate income manufactured home buying market. Noting it is not likely for any major policy change to happen before the November elections, MHARR paints several scenarios of post election power with Dodd-Frank on the cutting board, ranging from a Republican president and Congress, repeal of the law may be possible, to a Democratic White House and Congress wherein no major reforms would happen, perhaps just a few tweaks to the law. The report also states Congress has voted to cut the HUD program funding from $6.5 million authorized in the 2012 FY to $4 million for 2013. MHARR has long advocated for MH program funding to correspond to industry production, and has called on Congress to closely examine HUD’s MH budget. The association says for the third straight month the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC) has been rendered inactive by HUD’s alleged “glitch” in not paying the administering organization, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), for invoices dating back to 2009. MHARR suspects the “glitch,” which they were told was remedied several weeks ago, “could be yet another intentional effort to undermine a key element of the 2000 law.” For the full report, please click here.
