“Manufactured Housing Still Rocks!” with those words, Teresa Payne addressed the crowd at the busy L’Enfant Hotel solarium this morning, July 15th, an apt summation of this important MHI Summer Session meeting.

This will be the first of a series of reports you will find exclusively here on the Masthead blog, in articles by our MHMSM.com Industry In Focus Reporter Eric Miller’s articles and on our Factory Built Housing News at Noon podcasts by Erin Patla.

We want to start by taking hats off to Thayer Long and the rest of the dedicated MHI staff who worked hard to make this a productive and informative series of meetings. Much more on those staff members and committee leaders work in future reports.

Some of the items you will see in the days ahead will include details on::

• Over 80 visits by Industry professionals with Congressional members took place during the afternoon on Capitol Hill Wednesday, July 14.
• A reception held on July 14 with Congressional members and staff present, to informally meet with MHI members. We plan a series of exclusive follow ups with various members of Congress here on our pages (see sample photo below).
• Discussions on key topics such as financing, the SAFE Act, regulatory issues and strategy sessions took place. MHMSM.com plans to ask industry experts for their input on the technical topics, as part of our post-meeting coverage.
• Meetings with FEMA officials, as a prelude for what can result in new business for manufactured housing and park model home builders took place.
• Meetings and presentations with HUD and DOE officials took place. Individual reports will be found on our media site in the days ahead.
• A meeting with federal Rural Housing officials took place, to brief MHI industry members on how more retailers can tap into zero down payment financing on manufactured homes, not ‘someday,’ but right now!
• Systems Building Research Alliance report on a cost effective frost free foundation system approved for Manufactured Housing.
• SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). Yes, there are opportunities, as a good look at this flash report suggests.
• MHI PAC and other MHI division reports.
• MHEI’s plans to collaborate with Manufactured Home Marketing Sales Management.com (aka MHMSM.com) trade journal to sell book, videos and possible other cross marketing and cross promotional efforts.
• HUD’s MH Program Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Regulatory Affairs and Manufactured Housing, Teresa Payne comments at the meeting, as well as those of Elizabeth Coche and other officials associated with HUD and the new office for consumer financial protection.
• Past and present Congressmen who addressed the Industry personally at this meeting and who attended the Industry reception.

…and much more as well!

In short, this was a busy, busy 3 day session indeed! Among the items we plan to look at in more depth:

• The proposal by an association leader that the industry consider putting all of the current issues pending before the government into a new single piece of legislation, which this member proposed as the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2010 (or 2011, etc.). The concept – suggested in one of the meetings – would be designed to take a more pro-active approach on Industry issues, and to combine efforts into one bill rather than take an issue by issue approach.
• Discussion on the proposal by a state association leader on a recent conference call, to create a focused lobbying presence on some key issues relating to regulatory agencies or Congress. The suggestion included the hope that MHARR and MHI could collaborate on this effort. While no commitments were made either way on this topic, MHI officials said they were open to ‘anything’ that would advance the cause of the Industry at large. There was also a statement and some concerned discussion that such a move not result in a ‘third voice’ for the Industry being created, if this proposal were to come to fruition.

A key feature of the meeting wasn’t even on the main agenda. This was a meeting after the meeting with key federal officials to discuss how the Title 1 and other government involved lending programs could be made successful through careful, collaborative input by experienced Industry lenders and other stakeholders, such as manufactured home community operators, manufacturers, retailers and others. This was apparently the direct result of efforts at and immediately after the Congressman Joe Donnelly lead meeting in Elkhart in early June, 2010.

As is our custom, in an effort for balance in our reporting, we contacted MHARR in advance of this trip and during my stay in DC as well, to see if we could meet for comments and discussions on key issues facing the Industry. Scheduling conflicts on both ends kept that meeting with MHARR officials Danny Ghorbani and M. Mark Weiss from taking place.

On another meeting related note, the release of the new book The Manufactured Housing Revolution was met with considerable interest and praise. The vast majority of meeting attendees took a copy. HUD’s Commissioner Stevens, Teresa Payne and Liz Coche all wanted autographed copies, we look forward to their private (or public!) feedback, along with comments from others connected with our Industry.

Speaking of others, George Allen plans to do a book review of MHMSM.com’s popular new The Manufactured Housing Revolution soon on his blog, We have already had some early and positive comments, and anticipate other reviews and comments on this timely volume.

It is also worth noting that the Consortium of Industry publishers had their second meeting on July 13th. More on that discussion with George Allen, Ken Rishel and the planned follow up with come soon.

When the bullet points of a two and a half days of meetings takes some 2.5 pages to outline, that gives you a small sense of how busy and varied the topics were! Again, congratulation to Thayer Long and the MHI team for making this happen. I’d also like to underscore the positive facts that Congressmen, HUD officials, FEMA officials, Rural Housing program officials and numerous staff for the proceeding made this a rich series of opportunities for Industry professionals.

This would be a good time to note that membership in MHI brings value to those who participate and attend such functions. Access to this level of Congressional and government officials is enhanced by participation and engagement via MHI.

We will strive to bring you reporting in the days ahead that will capture the keys to all that took place. For those sitting in those meeting rooms with an open and attentive mind, you would have to walk away with the impression that the Industry is trying to come to grips with challenging issues in a very direct and positive fashion.

If you haven’t already done so, please check out Hometown America’s Greg O’Berry’s post on a time sensitive topic, submitted yesterday evening and that went live the same day. Greg’s comments were a direct result of discussion during the National Communities Council (NCC) meeting. This would be an appropriate time for me to personally invite meeting attendees, public officials and MHI staff to consider sharing their perspectives publicly via our Industry Voices Guest Blog.

My personal thanks to all who took the time to share a few minutes with me, to the many who had positive or encouraging words to share about our MHMSM.com trade journal. In turn, I want to thank the dedicated writers and team members at MHMSM.com who made this trip for me possible, because good people kept the wheels of our electronic platform ever moving ahead! The reality of a solid team doing their respective functions well made my trip to Washington with family for this timely event a reality.

Hats off and our thanks to one and all involved! # #