The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) says the past decade has seen the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its manufactured housing program ignore, evade or circumvent both the broad transformative purposes of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000.  This has had a devastating impact on the industry and American consumers of affordable housing, as consumer financing has virtually disappeared and production of HUD-regulated manufactured homes since 2000 has declined by nearly 90 percent, with a 40 percent drop just between 2008 and 2009. MHARR says the group has once again taken the lead to alert Congress to the need for significant remedial action.  In a letter to HUD, MHARR President Danny Ghorbani outlines what the group sees as the disastrous consequences of HUD’s failure to implement and follow the 2000 law and says because HUD itself continues to view and regulate manufactured homes as “trailers” rather than “homes,” it legitimates ongoing discrimination against manufactured homes and manufactured home buyers in critical areas such as placement, zoning and, most importantly, financing.  See the full text of the letter at http://www.mhmsm.com/latest-news-from-mharr/1263-focus-returns-to-congress-on-major-issues.