In the United States today, statistically several hundreds – perhaps thousands – of collective views of various videos on mobile and manufactured home living will occur. What are the not so subtle messages that are being sent by fairly common reports?
This report could be a fine bookend or prelude to the “Endangered” report linked below. Before or after readers digest this report and view these videos, that University of Texas law school report ought to be considered. Why?
Endangered – University of Texas Study of Manufactured Home Communities
Among the concerns raised in the videos that follow are issues that the Texas-based university-level study spotlighted.
The first video reflects fears, sadness and frustration on the part of evicted residents. This may be uncomfortable for many, but it is the reality of those who have gone through this trauma.
At the I-70 Mobile Home Park in Indianapolis, Indiana complaints about living conditions caused public officials to take action, says the second video in this report. The I-70 community was ordered closed.
While each of the next three include the topic of fires set in the community, perhaps by squatters, but possibly by others, the two below each sheds a different light on local reactions to the issues. Think of those reactions being multiplied numerous times in that community, but also in others from border to border. Because stories like this are playing out all too often as manufactured home news observers well know.
Fires in Closed Community, More Details…
Naturally, residents in that community, both newer ones and long-term ones reacted with fear, frustration, anger and alarm when word of their eviction first hit. Imagine the stress of those impacted. Or don’t imagine, just listen to what residents say, their body language and the expressions. Local media naturally has been covering this story for several months, as a prior report by MHProNews indicates.
“Mass Eviction” by Manufactured Home Community “Up in Arms,” Raft of Mainstream Coverage
Many or the structures visible in this video appear to be pre-HUD Code mobile homes.
While the term “trailer” still doesn’t apply, that sign of I70 Mobile Home Park appears to date back to that pre-HUD Code manufactured home era. But who at The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) would bother themselves to shed light on that topic with area reporters? After all, they are busy telling their members about all of the good things that they are doing for manufactured housing industry members. As one of their recent emails put it about a bill that Skopos Labs and GovTrack both reported the MHI backed bill has only a 4 percent chance of becoming law. But that reality check didn’t prevent MHI’s communication team from reaching around their own shoulders to pat themselves on the back by saying that “…yesterday’s vote demonstrates MHI’s effective and continued advocacy on behalf of the industry.”
Anatomy of High-Tech, Scandalous Deception? National Trade Groups Agree on HR 4351 YIMBY Act
That odd boast from MHI comes from the same Arlington, VA based trade group that claimed for over a year in a video launched in late 2018 that these stills below were compiled from that MHI had reached “millions” of Americans with their articles, social media and other messages on manufactured housing. Really?
If so, then when did the manufactured home industry’s 2019 sales, production and shipments decline year-over-year compared to 2018 — during an affordable housing crisis? Even MHI admitted, although in an arguably twisted fashion, that shipments were down.
Such bizarre and seemingly self-contradictory claims are told with the routine calm confidence often found in magicians and con artists.
Given the level of posturing without discernable proof, it is understandable that local media look at those mobile homes as “trailers.” After all, MHI won’t defend them, as the Modular Home Builders Association recently alleged. MHProNews has previously asked MHI to contact the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook publishers and Google about ongoing terminology errors. The result? Nothing. No response. Yet their own prior chairman proudly told MHProNews a few years ago that such was precisely what was needed. Why did MHI not do what their own chairman said was prudent?
No effective counter-messaging is occurring that frames such troubling stories in a more complete light. Every industry has bad actors. But perhaps part of the the problem in manufactured housing is that many of those problematic behaviors are found among MHI’s own members. What happened to their summer of 2019 touted “Code of Ethical Conduct” warnings? Was that just show and window dressing?
It isn’t that the industry’s leaders don’t know that there are image issues, often based upon accurate reports like the videos posted on this page reflect.
For proof that the industry’s “leaders” have long known about these issues is found in the report citing Kevin Clayton at length.
A pro-Berkshire Hathaway interviewer asked the following.
Robert Miles:
“I was gonna ask you what you’ve done with the image. There’s many jokes about trailers and hillbillies. Is there anything that Clayton homes is doing in terms of the image?”
Kevin Clayton responded to Miles by saying, “As an industry, we’re ready to launch a national campaign to dispel those myths. As I mentioned, hurricanes, that’s not an issue anymore. Now every home has to be inspected by a licensed installer, an inspection process. The tie down systems and all that are very adequate as evidenced by the hurricane issues. JD Power, CSI, all those things now give us a great message to go public with. There’s plans for that underway now.”
Indeed, since that statement was made, in fairness there was the Duck Dynasty promotion launched by Clayton Homes. There were also other promotions during SEC football or in connection with other events. There has been the MHI advertorials and story-telling video campaigns. But the industry has hardly dented their prior peaks, pre-Berkshire Hathaway.
How is that possible? Didn’t Buffett pledge, per Kevin Clayton, to give them whatever they needed? That they have plenty of money for Clayton’s purposes? Are intelligent people supposed to believe that the wizards in Omaha-Knoxville-Arlington axis and their allies don’t have the same skill levels necessary to sell manufactured homes at the kinds of levels previously achieved for decades?
Those are worthy questions. Revolvy does a snapshot of Clayton Homes that provides a partial list of the controversies that firm is involved in that may shed light on the topic. The following is an extended quote from that source, complete with crosslinks and footnotes.
Documented Controversies
Clayton Homes was involved in a lawsuit in 2011 with FEMA after providing trailers as part of Hurricane Katrina relief which were found to contain formaldehyde. Afterwards, one of 12 prefab shelters provided to Haiti through the Clinton Foundation after the 2010 earthquake was found to have a formaldehyde level of 250 ppb, “a very high level” according to a scientist specializing in indoor pollutants at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[53]
In 2015, a news story claimed that Clayton Homes unfairly targets and exploits minority home buyers.[54] Clayton Homes was further criticized for its alleged use of corrupt business practices. The company has denied discriminating against its customers or its workers.[5][55][56] Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, defended Clayton against predatory lending claims in an interview saying: “We have 300,000 loans on the books and in the last 3 years I’ve not received one letter of complaint from anybody.”[57][58]
Missing from that list is a report that ironically features Clayton and several other MHI member firms.
The video below is from that report and analysis linked above. On this date it has been viewed over 7.6 million times.
The graphic below is from the Clayton Homes website. That stands in contrast to Kevin Clayton’s statement to Robert Miles about JD Powers and CSI. Their own internal referral score yields a failing grade in most American grading systems. But even more apparent is the market’s response. When millions who could don’t buy the product, that’s a critical measure that counts.
MHProNews Takeaways, Analysis and Commentary
By accident or design, the manufactured housing industry has been underperforming since 2003. Yes, that underperformance began before that year, but what the data graphic above clearly reflects is that the industry is performing at a historically low level during an affordable housing crisis.
In fairness, this would not be possible based upon actions or inactions by the Omaha-Knoxville-Arlington axis alone.
Trump Administration Asked to Withdraw Brian D Montgomery Nomination Over Conflicts of Interest
There are laws that were enacted that have not been properly implemented. When a law passes, an agency or authority is identified and given the responsibility to insure that it is enforced. For example, HUD is responsible for the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act (MHIA) of 2000. See the report linked above.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) was empowered on the Duty to Serve lending provisions of manufactured housing.
It is possible that there is no collusion whatsoever between key members of those agencies and officials connected to Berkshire Hathaway, Clayton Homes, MHI et al. But it is also arguable that there are deals that have been made behind closed doors.
Whatever the case, there is a scandal that keeps rearing its ugly head in reports like the local news stories above raised. Are numbers of members of the manufactured housing industry manipulating local, state and federal laws in ways that benefit a few at great cost and harm to many others?
Where there is smoke, there is routinely fire. See the related reports, linked above and below, to learn more.
To learn more, see the related reports below the byline. That’s it for this installment of manufactured housing “Industry News Tips and Views Pros Can Use“ © – MHVille’s runaway #1 news source, where “We Provide, You Decide.” © (News, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary.) Notice: all third party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media. 
Submitted by Soheyla Kovach for MHProNews.com. Soheyla is a co-founder and managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com. Connect with us on LinkedIn here and here.
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