“I love my home!” says Carrie Keuter in a testimonial posted on the TableMoundMHP website on 7.8.2024. “Stay away/ this place is run by liars and thieves!!” asserted a Google review posted by Ken Mills about that same community. Then “Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer called for an investigation into Impact Communities’ business operations. Finkenauer called Impact Communities practices predatory and said big corporations are exploiting communities like Table Mound,” per regional news source KWWL. Left-leaning Bing’s AI powered Copilot said: “The Table Mound Mobile Home Park in Dubuque, Iowa, is indeed associated with Impact Communities. Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds, who are known for their involvement in the manufactured housing industry, have connections to Impact Communities. However, it’s important to note that their actions and business practices have been a topic of controversy. Reports have highlighted issues such as steep site fee increases and questionable eviction grounds in communities owned by them. While there are still many independently owned communities with good reputations, it’s advisable to research any community thoroughly before making decisions. If you’re shopping for a manufactured home or considering a land-lease community, look for those with stellar records and fair agreements¹.” With that conflicting imagery between the apparent fig leaf offered by Impact’s promotional video shown below of Keuter stating her “love” of her home and troubling evidence-based allegations of predatory and deceptive business practices, note that thus far Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds have declined comment to MHProNews on this developing headline story. Per the Telegraph Herald is the following dated 7.7.2024. “Paul E. Carter, 53, of 9442 Noonan St., Lot 741, was arrested at 4:25 p.m. Friday at the Noonan Street trailer park on charges of assault while displaying a dangerous weapon, driving while barred and trespassing.

Court documents state that Carter was evicted from his residence at the trailer park on Wednesday. On Friday, park manager Ryan Barton, 27, spotted Carter at his former lot and told him he was not allowed on the property.

Carter then went to the deck of the residence, picked up a crossbow loaded with an arrow and pointed it at Barton, documents state. Barton ran to his truck and called 911, then returned to the park office to meet with law enforcement.

Deputies met with Carter, who told them he accessed the mobile home by taking out several screws in the doors and was in the process of moving his property when Barton arrived. Carter said he picked up the crossbow “with the intent of getting Barton away from his lot,” documents state.

Deputies located a black crossbow in the cocked position with a red arrow in the attached quiver, documents state.”

Part I – Additional Information from Media, Public Officials and Sources Including Copilot

In no particular order of importance are the following facts, statements, and evidence from sources as shown.

1) In response to an inquiry from MHProNews, Copilot said in part the following about the address cited for the incident involving Paul E. Carter.

I found information related to the address at 9442 Noonan St, Dubuque, IA 52003. It seems to be a mobile home located in the Table Mound Mobile Home Park¹. The property is a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom single-wide home built in 2020. When new, it was retailed at $54,900. …” Copilot said it could find no further information on Carter’s arrest.

It is also worth noting that Copilot said when prompted by a separate inquiry:

Terminology and Misconceptions:

• • …While some still use terms like “trailer park” or “mobile home park,” it’s essential to recognize that most homes within these communities are not traditional trailers. Instead, they are HUD Code-compliant manufactured homes.
  • The sign at Table Mound clearly identifies it as the “Table Mound MHP Manufactured Home Community,” emphasizing the distinction.

2)

Is that Table Mound MHP in Dubuque IA owned or connected to Impact Communities, associated with Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds, who are members of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) along with numbers of MHI linked state association affiliates?

The Table Mound Mobile Home Park in Dubuque, Iowa, is indeed associated with Impact Communities. Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds, who are known for their involvement in the manufactured housing industry, have connections to Impact Communities. However, it’s important to note that their actions and business practices have been a topic of controversy. Reports have highlighted issues such as steep site fee increases and questionable eviction grounds in communities owned by them. While there are still many independently owned communities with good reputations, it’s advisable to research any community thoroughly before making decisions. If you’re shopping for a manufactured home or considering a land-lease community, look for those with stellar records and fair agreements¹. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! 😊

Learn more

1manufacturedhomelivingnews.com 2 bing.com 3 tablemoundmhp.com 4 tablemoundmhp.com 5 manufacturedhomepronews.com 6 manufacturedhomepronews.com 7 manufacturedhomepronews.com 8 manufacturedhomelivingnews.com…”

3) Prior to the arrest of Carter, KWWL’s Daniel Perreault filed a report under the headline: “Dubuque mobile home residents continue fight against high rent, push for new state laws” which included the following remarks.

“In January 2020, then Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer called for an investigation into Impact Communities’ business operations. Finkenauer called Impact Communities practices predatory and said big corporations are exploiting communities like Table Mound.”

“State Representative Lindsay James…State Sen. Pam Jochum joined James. Dubuque City Council members Danny Sprank and Laura Roussell were also in attendance” at a meeting with residents. ”

“According to residents, rent was previously $270 a month with water, sewage and trash included. Now, rent has increased to $470.” “According to IMPACT Communities, Table Mound residents were previously not paying the actual costs of water and sewer being used by residents.” That report was on Aug 1, 2021, and of course, site fees are apparently even higher now, after doubling and charging separately for water, sewage, and trash.

The video below from the Telegraph Herald‘s YouTube page said: “U.S. Rep. Abby Finkenauer and Dubuque Mobile Home Owners Association President Carrie Presley discuss their efforts to legally block further lot rent and various fee hikes they say they have suffered under the out-of-state corporation which purchased the park over a year ago.” That corporation is apparently Impact Communities, associated with Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds, per Copilot and other sources. 

 

 

4) As MHProNews and MHLivingNews have previously reported, “Frank and Dave” have complained about the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) not doing enough to push back against mainstream media concerns and increased pressure for legislation.  For instance.

 

While it seems that Rolfe is perhaps aptly pointing the finger at others involved at MHI, like Nathan Smith and Flagship Communities, at least one of those proverbial fingers are pointing back at themselves and their own operations.

 

 

5) With that backdrop, it is then useful to consider how does Impact Communities manage to attract new residents with such a problematic business reputation?  Part of the answer in part appears to include nice looking websites, nice looking videos, and apparently evidence-based allegations of faked consumer reviews. That helps explain Copilot’s caution about doing business with the firm and duo, cited in the opening paragraph above.

 

 

According to Copilot (terminology topic was cited above):

…

2. Impact Communities and RV Horizons:
   • Impact Communities, formerly known as RV Horizons, owns Table Mound. The company is associated with Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds.
   • Residents have raised concerns about rent hikes, poor maintenance, and changes in community dynamics since Impact Communities took over.
   • Lawsuits, compliance complaints, and protests against the company have multiplied, drawing attention from state regulators¹.
3. Fake Reviews and Authenticity:
   • Online reviews play a significant role in shaping perceptions. However, there have been allegations of inauthentic reviews. Some companies, including Impact Communities, have faced scrutiny for encouraging employees to post favorable reviews²³.
   • It’s crucial for potential residents to approach reviews with a critical eye, considering both positive and negative feedback.
4. John Oliver’s “Mobile Homes” Segment:
   • You’re absolutely right. John Oliver’s viral video on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” did feature Frank Rolfe by name and face. The satirical report criticized industry practices, including those of Warren Buffett’s Clayton Homes.
   • The segment highlighted predatory practices, steep rent increases, and poor living conditions in mobile home parks.
5. Frank Rolfe and Tim Williams Connection:
   • Frank Rolfe, along with Tim Williams of 21st Mortgage Corp, has indicated business ties with Clayton Homes.
   • While the industry landscape is complex, it’s essential for residents and potential buyers to research thoroughly and make informed decisions.

In summary, the Table Mound Manufactured Home Community faces challenges related to ownership, reviews, and terminology. As discussions continue, residents hope for transparency, fair treatment, and improved living conditions. 😊

Learn more

1burlington-record.com 2indeed.com 3 cbsnews.com 4 bing.com 5 tablemoundmhp.com 6 mobilehomeuniversity.com 7 en.wikipedia.org 8 manufacturedhomepronews.com 9 rvparkuniversity.com 10 indeed.com 11 manufacturedhomepronews.com 12 manufacturedhomelivingnews.com 13 denverpost.com 14 bbb.org 15smallbizclub.com 16forbes.com 17reviews.birdeye.com …”

 

6) According to KCRG-TV9: “Dubuque applying for federal grant to help mobile home owners.”

 

 

Those “PRICE” grants are something that MHI has touted.  According to HUD’s website: “PRESERVATION AND REINVESTMENT INITIATIVE FOR COMMUNITY ENHANCEMENT (PRICE)” Here is what HUD has to say about their own program.

 

 

Important Update:

HUD issued a modification to the Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) NOFO on May 17, 2024. The PRICE NOFO modification incorporates $10 million in funding from the FY24 PRICE appropriation (for a total of $235 million), provides clarifications, and makes technical corrections. The application deadline has been extended to July 10, 2024.

Overview:

HUD has issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) which appropriates $235 million in competitive grant funding for the preservation and revitalization of manufactured housing and eligible manufactured housing communities. Congress has directed HUD to undertake a competition using the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) statutory and regulatory framework for this first-of-its-kind initiative. The Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement supports communities in their efforts to maintain, protect, and stabilize manufactured housing and manufactured housing communities (MHCs).

Manufactured housing is a critical piece of the nation’s affordable housing stock that provides a home to over 22 million Americans. Manufactured housing and manufactured housing communities (MHCs) face significant challenges to affordability, resilience, infrastructure, and maintenance that are exacerbated by state titling and local zoning laws, financial pressures from landowners or investors, and extreme weather, natural hazards, and disaster events.

Of the $235 million available in PRICE funding, $210 million is reserved for the main PRICE competition (PRICE Main), of which $11 million is intended for Tribal Applicants (with $1 million reserved for Tribal Applicants), and $25 million is reserved for a pilot program (PRICE Replacement Pilot) to assist in the redevelopment of manufactured housing communities as replacement housing that is affordable. The PRICE Main funding will support low- and moderate-income homeowners with manufactured housing units and manufactured housing communities with critical investments such as repairs, infrastructure improvements, upgrades to increase resilience, services like eviction prevention and housing counseling, and planning activities such as those needed to transition to resident-managed communities. The PRICE Replacement Pilot will enable the replacement of manufactured housing units, especially those in disrepair, with up to four units of affordable housing – gently increasing density and ensuring affordability for years to come.

HUD will be accepting applications for PRICE grants to preserve and revitalize manufactured housing and eligible manufactured housing communities. Eligible applicants include local and state governments, Indian Tribes or their Tribally Designated Housing Entities (TDHEs), multi-jurisdictional entities, resident-controlled MHCs, cooperatives, non-profit entities (including consortia of non-profit entities), Tribal non-profits, community development finance institutions (CDFIs), and Native CDFIs. Entities that partner with one or several residents of eligible manufactured housing communities or that propose to implement a grant program that would assist residents of eligible MHCs are also eligible.

NOTE: Before submitting to HUD, applicants must publish their PRICE application for public comment. The streamlined requirements mandate at least one public hearing/community meeting for the application and require providing a reasonable notice (at least 15 days) and opportunity for public comment and ongoing public access to information about the use of grant funds. The public comment period must end no less than three calendar days before application submittal to allow the applicant time to consider and incorporate public comments. For more information, please visit Section VI.E.5.a.iii of the NOFO.

Tribal Applicants may choose to follow the public participation requirements outlined in 24 CFR 1003.604 and must certify to HUD that the Tribal Applicant complied with the public participation requirements of 1003.604(a) prior to applying.

Quick Summaries

• FY23/FY24 PRICE Main Quick Summary
• FY23/FY24 PRICE Tribal Quick Summary
• FY23/FY24 PRICE Replacement Pilot Quick Summary

Notice Of Funding Opportunity:

The NOFO can be viewed here: FY23/FY24 PRICE NOFO. The modified PRICE NOFO materials can be found in “FR-6700-N-99-Revised Full Announcement – Revised Full Announcement.zip” under Related Documents.

Associated application materials can be found below. This funding was authorized under the authority of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Public Law 117-328, approved December 29, 2022) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law 118-42, approved March 9, 2024) (Appropriations Acts).

The application deadline is July 10, 2024 at 11:59pm ET (8:59pm PT) on Grants.gov.

HUD strongly recommends you submit your applications at least 48 hours before the deadline and during regular business hours to allow enough time to correct errors or overcome other problems. …##

So, the deadline for applying for this program is just 2 days away.  Note that Marcus and Millichap in their report linked below indicated that this program wasn’t an apparently easy one to navigate. Given that the news video posted above suggests that city officials are working in an attempt to qualify for this program, and such officials may have experience at filing paperwork for federal or other grants, it seems that this not an easy (or likely?) scenario for hundreds of properties to be able to successfully navigate.

 

7) But for discussion’s sake, imagine if Dubuque successfully navigates this process and Table Mound becomes resident owned. While that could help those residents in the sense that it keeps their situation from deteriorating even further at the hands of a firm like MHI-linked “Frank and Dave” and Impact Communities, in the meantime, they have disrupted the lives of those residents and others. Seekers of affordable housing may be left with the impression that all or many community operators are like Impact and “Frank and Dave.” This is what MHI award winner, and periodic MHI critic Marty Lavin broadly referred to as the industry’s “other image campaign.”

 

 

 

8) But this pattern doesn’t just harm seekers of affordable housing that may be considering the manufactured home option. It also harms “white hat” style companies that may never use predatory practices. Fostering the industry’s stigma, rightly or wrongly, de facto becomes marketing for Frank and Dave’s for-profit classes. They may get more ‘free media’ than MHI and all of the state association affiliates combined. And who would be attracted into the industry via classes by Frank and Dave? Isn’t it possible that those who pay thousands for a class and then go on to buy or invest in manufactured housing communities end up having business practices much like their own?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9) It must be stressed that Rolfe and Reynolds’ linked businesses are hardly the only ones that are stirring up trouble for honest businesses that have genuinely ethical business practices, not to forget the thousands of vulnerable residents of predatory community operators often associated with MHI.  There are multiple reports involving others, which all too often appears to have links to MHI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10) Despite this problematic pattern involving Rolfe, Reynolds, Impact Communities, and several other community operators and vertically integrated producers associated with MHI, it is stunning that lazy, inept, or perhaps cronyism tainted and corrupt media can look beyond the evidence and try to make MHI seem like it is led by honorable corporate and staff leaders? This is where the irony and hilarity of Rolfe, and some others, comes into focus.  Rolfe publicly rips MHI on a periodic basis too.

 

 

 

11) Rolfe has recently emailed a statement to his followers that while the source must be considered, nevertheless raised an apt concern. Rolfe faults “special interests” – including public officials and business interests – in not wanting to solve the affordable housing crisis.  He may have a point, as some politicians would rather ‘preserve a controversial issue’ rather than solve it, so that they can keep campaigning, fund raising, and gaining votes over a subject that might have been dealt with effectively years before. See the deeper dives linked above and below for details.

 

 

12) These patterns of behavior – often tied to MHI linked businesses and/or firms that are associated with an MHI state association affiliate – have sparked backlash at the local, state, and national levels. Legislation has been enacted and/or is pending, which often have the fingerprints of Rolfe, Reynolds, and other colleagues of theirs at MHI and/or at the state association level in the problematic “witch’s brew” of predatory practices.

 

 

13) Part of the solution is to enforce existing laws vigorously, says sources such as the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR).  MHARR continues to press federal officials and has also pushed MHI to litigate these “bottleneck” issues.

 

 

 

‘Supreme Court Ruling Changes Regulatory Landscape for Manufactured Housing Industry’ What Manufactured National Housing Associations – MHI and MHARR – Others Have Said So Far; Facts-Analysis

 

14) Per Copilot: “In summary, the Table Mound Manufactured Home Community faces complex challenges related to ownership, reviews, terminology, and safety. Residents hope for transparency, fair treatment, and improved living conditions. …”

MHProNews has a report on the legislative side of these broader and related issues planned. Watch for it. White hat brands would be well advised to create a bright line distinction between their operations and those of a darker, predatory, and unethical nature. There should also be a press to enforce existing laws, because it isn’t just manufactured home community residents that are under economic duress.  There is more to know on these subjects, see the linked items and use the search tools on MHProNews and MHLivingNews to discover more. ###

 

In several devices the image below can be opened to a larger size.
In many cases you can click the image and follow the prompts.

 

The One Thing that Might Work at Improving U.S. Housing Crisis Faster than More Manufactured Housing Production – Which Others in MHVille Have Downplayed-Ignored; plus MHVille Markets

Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)

By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.

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.

http://latonykovach.com

Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach

 

 

Related References:

The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.’

‘Homeownership Slipped Out of Reach for Millions in U.S.’ ‘Investors Snatching Up 1 in 5 Homes for Sale Scooping Up Affordable Housing’ Redfin and Other Data Reveal MHVille Obstacles and Opportunities

Niskanen Center Armlovich-Jimenez-Justus Tout Manufactured Homes-House Financial Services Committee Housing Affordability-Governmental Barriers-Market Based Solutions; Sunday MHVille Headlines Recap

Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton (MA-D) Said ‘Democrats are Party of Ultra-Rich and the Ultra-Poor’ -Rigged System Revelations- Facts and Analysis; plus Sunday Weekly MHVille Headlines Recap

June is National Home Ownership Month-Affordable Housing-Manufactured Housing Institute Controversies plus Industry Facts-Figures-Trends-Challenges in May 2024 – The Top 40 – plus MHVille Markets Update

‘Hit the Ball and Drag Jack’ What Classic Golfer Jest Teaches Career and Growth-Minded Manufactured Home Professionals About Manufactured Housing Institute; plus Sunday Weekly Headlines Recap

Evidence of Truly Affordable Housing Hiding in Plain Sight – ‘Average Sales Price of New Manufactured Homes by Region and Size of Home’ per U.S. Census Bureau Data; plus MHVille Markets Update

Investopedia Asks Common Sense Question – What Would it Take for Houses to Be Affordable in the U.S. Again? NAR’s Lawrence Yun Weighs In – MHVille Takeaways; plus MHVille Markets