Lane Anderson at theDeseret News  is one of the writers and various media outlets that picked up on The Atlantic’s recent article, The Case for Trailer Parks. Lane writes, “According to 2013 data from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 50 percent of renters in the U.S. spent more than 30 percent of gross income on rent. This is up 12 percent points since 2000.”

“About 35 percent of Americans are renting now, according to the report, and more demand keeps driving rent prices up and up.”

“Now, enter the humble trailer home. It’s affordable and relatively new and spacious as compared to a lot of cramped, crumbling low-end apartment buildings, say housing experts.”

Lane quotes from generally favorable comments made about manufactured housing from The Atlantic, and continues: “The median cost of a single-family home last year was $324,000 according to the Census Bureau. A trailer? Just $64,000.”

“Freddie Mac started financing trailer park developers last year, according to The Wall Street Journal, signaling that the mortgage lender is moving into that market as an affordable housing option.”

Having based her writng primarily on The Atlantic’s, Lane’s article has essentially the same strengths and – weaknesses – such as improper terminology and perpetuating the stereotype of MH as being for the poor. Lane may not have seen the CBS News video which interviewed millionaires living in manufactured homes who called modern HUD Code certified homes, “trendy.”

A manufactured home industry response that corrects the weaknesses made in The Atlantic  column would apply for Lane’s article too, and is linked here. ##

(Photo credit: La Citta Vita/Flickr/The Atlantic)