One of the definitions for the word “anatomy” includes “a study of the structure or internal workings of something.” A definition for scandalous includes: “a state of affairs disgracefully bad, typically as a result of someone’s negligence or irresponsibility,” e.g.: “a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money.” There is a different type of scandal that this article will focus on.

Since 2003, manufactured housing has been shockingly, perhaps scandalously, underperforming, as the graphic below reflects.

 

 

Preface. Manufactured housing has on paper the benefit of favorable federal laws that if enforced would raise the numbers of new HUD Code manufactured homes sold significantly.

• Then why are those laws largely ignored or aren’t being properly enforced?
• Why are artificial limitations of manufactured housing industry performance being tolerated by industry leaders as the obvious outcome of failure to enforce good laws?

Furthermore, there are two national trade groups whose respective missions overlap on some issues, but do not on others. Why do they often differ in their interpretation and reporting on events? When they seemingly agree, how does one explain the surprisingly different stances?

These are among the issues this report will explore. Readers are cautioned. The devil is in the details. Careful attention must be paid. The following quotable quotes help set the stage for the analysis that will follow.

 

The reason propaganda is used is because it works.

 

 

There are several dozen trade associations in manufactured housing, but two which have been national in scope that have existed for decades. This report and analysis will next look at how the two different trade groups looked at the exact same piece of legislation and how they have reported industry news for the same time frame.

 

1) Same Bill – HR passed H.R. 4351, the “Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) Act”

The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) and the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) are both on record in support of a bill that is pending in Congress.

But the two national manufactured housing trade groups have recently issued starkly different statements to their members and readers.

From a recent MHI email, is the following.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed H.R. 4351, the “Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) Act,” and H.R. 5931, the “Improving FHA Support for Small Dollar Mortgages Act of 2020,” Monday evening. The House Financial Services Committee unanimously passed both bills last week. MHI has been a supporter of these bills, and yesterday’s vote demonstrates MHI’s effective and continued advocacy on behalf of the industry.

The YIMBY Act is bipartisan legislation, introduced by Reps. Heck (D-WA), Hollingsworth (R-IN), Clay (D-MO), Foxx (R-NC), Quigley (D-IL), and Herrera Beutler (R-WA), that is intended to eliminate local land use policies preventing the development of affordable housing.  The bill specifically calls for “allowing manufactured homes in areas zoned primarily for single-family residential homes.” MHI joined a group of housing industry advocates to encourage passage of this important bill. H.R. 4351 creates a reporting requirement under the existing Consolidated Plan Reporting that would require localities that receive Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to report the extent to which they are implementing specific pro-affordability and anti-discriminatory housing policies. Companion legislation also supported by MHI, S. 1919, was introduced in the Senate in June 2019 by Senator Todd Young (R-IN).

H.R. 5931, the “Improving FHA Support for Small Dollar Mortgages Act of 2020” requires the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to review its policies and identify any barriers to supporting mortgages under $70,000 and report to Congress within a year a plan for removing such barriers. During Committee discussion, Representative Al Lawson (D-FL) requested clarification that the legislation would also be applicable to manufactured home loans. Representative William Lacy Clay (D-MO), who authored the bill, confirmed that manufactured home loans would be included in the review. Representative Steve Stivers (R-OH) added that the legislation would be a positive step forward for manufactured housing financing.

MHI will continue working with Congress and the Administration to help alleviate state and local impediments to manufactured housing.”

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New and longer-time readers alike should bear in mind the history of several issues in discerning what’s right, wrong or meh between these two national trade group communiques. Let’s note that on paper, both MHI and MHARR support the same bill. But their expectations and understanding of the two bills are quite different.  After confirming that they formally support HR 4351, here is what MHARR’s President and CEO Mark Weiss, J.D. said to MHProNews.

“A non-binding ‘carrot’ that this legislation proposes seems unlikely to produce concrete results without the “stick” of the HUD Code’s enhanced preemption authority over discriminatory zoning mandates.  That’s grounded in the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act (MHIA) of 2000. The full implementation of the MHIA has been and continues to be a major priority for MHARR.”

Rephrased, MHARR said that they don’t expect this law to do much, even if it does pass.  Why? Because enhanced preemption is already law and it is being ignored. MHI pays lip service to the law, but as numerous prior reports have made plain, they have apparently failed to press the matter with officials at HUD.   It was so insignficant, that MHARR didn’t bother mention it to their members. Why get lathered up about nothing? See what third-party GovTrack and Skopos Labs had to say about the bill on the same date as MHI was patting themselves on their own backs.

 

Meanwhile, MHI is prancing and touting how they are “working with Congress and the Administration to help alleviate state and local impediments to manufactured housing.” Really?

MHI affiliates, by intent or not, have de facto exposed the troubling reality that zoning and placement issues are getting worse. Here’s how Mary Gaiski, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Manufactured Housing Association (PMHA) recently put it to mainstream media.

 

When asked, Gaiski did not dispute the accuracy of the quotation. That full report is linked below.

Association Leaders Spotlight, Blast-Zoning, Financing, CrossModsTM and Manufactured Housing Institute

Legacy Housing in conference calls with investors frankly tells them how serious the hurdles in zoning are and what steps they are taking to address placement which is limiting the sales of new homes.

The context for Hodgson’s comments are found in the report linked below.

Legacy Housing Leadership Comments Undermine Manufactured Housing Institute Claims

Those two examples are sufficient for researchers looking in to grasp that MHI, to put it politely, is arguably full of it and themselves. Those who are in the trenches of manufactured housing retail already know those realities all too well, as Hodgson and Gaiski exemplify.

When the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act (MHIA) of 2000 bars such behavior by localities, why hasn’t the post-production umbrella association MHI used their access at HUD to get such barriers removed by using the enhanced preemption provision of the MHIA?

 

 

Most retailers wouldn’t have the time to sift through the various statements by different companies and organizations to see where they differ. The normal smaller business is busy running their business and they rely upon their trade group to do the right things.

That said, what if the trade group has been weaponized by larger firms intent on slyly pushing them out of business or consolidating them into the hands of larger firms?

Weaponized Philanthropy, Castrated Associations and Manufactured Housing – Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett Connection

That’s not some conspiracy theory, as an MHI-supported blogger has claimed, because the published statements by key MHI member publicly traded companies have made consolidation their self-proclaimed number one focus.

 

Cavco brags about how they have consolidated much of the industry, in what seems to be an oligopolic relationship between Skyline Champion, and Berkshire Hathaway owned Clayton Homes. If the goal is to consolidate production, why is there any doubt that the same goal exists with retail?

Keep Kevin Clayton’s statement below in mind.

Kevin Clayton bragged in that same interview about their acquisition of old (pre-Cavco) Fleetwood Retail.

 

These are the types of allegations and concerns among numerous independent businesses who flock to MHProNews by the thousands daily. Note that their ‘big boy’ counterparts, per informed sources, likewise check in to read here routinely, as do public officials, an apparently growing number of investors, researchers and affordable housing advocates.

There is a fiduciary responsibility on the part of a trade association leaders to their members. There is also a legal obligation on the part of publicly traded companies to tell the truth as they know it in public statements, lest current or potential investors be misled.

Fraud, RICO and Antitrust-Issues of Genius, Honesty, Legality, Competency-Berkshire Hathaway and Manufactured Housing Institute Leadership, Sunday Morning Headlines Review 2.23 to 3.1.2020

Using the U.S. Mail, “the wires” and other forms of communications in a deliberately deceptive fashion may be construed as a form of fraud. When an organization does so deliberately that may trigger a variety of RICO and other state or federal allegations that can be civil and/or criminal in nature.

In the face of scandalous mismanagement of MHI’s staff CEO, Lesli Gooch, Ph.D., OMHA’s Tim Williams praised her – but per sources, he was ‘pushed’ into doing so.

Those claims were previously debunked in the context of not only quoting Williams, which was properly done, but also in terms of the history and whistleblower reports of Lesli Gooch’s purported conflicts of interest.

If these aren’t examples of scandalous, deceptive behavior, what is?  The industry is arguably being undermined from within, and the three letters that are the nexus of that deceptive failure would be MHI.