Washington, D.C., December 7, 2009 — The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) has widened its inquiry into the ongoing coercion of manufactured housing producers by HUD regulators and agents under the guise of “voluntary” cooperation. Any such “request” by regulators within a comprehensive regulatory system for “voluntary” action above and beyond existing regulations, without a specific document that has gone through the rigors of rulemaking, is accurately perceived, by the regulated party, as pressure and coercion.

Such coercion of manufacturers in their production facilities — designed to pressure them to accept and implement costly new production oversight practices not required by current program regulations — had its genesis in 2008 and has expanded and intensified during 2009…