“A century of policy mistakes ruined America’s cities and created an unprecedented housing crisis.” So says the promo on Amazon for Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis, which also stated: “For many families, homelessness is no longer someone else’s problem. It is right around the corner, a real threat in their own immediate future. Our housing crisis is the result of a long history of government policies, court cases, and political manipulation. While these disparate causes make up a tangled web, they have one surprising root: the attack on private property rights.” More from that book promo will follow, but next let’s consider the headline which promised and will deliver the following review by the Capital Research Center’s (CRC) Robert Stilson, J.D., review of that book by the Pacific Legal Foundation’s (PLF) Vice President James S. Burling volume on the root causes of the U.S. housing crisis. MHProNews notes that there are several nonprofit organizations in the U.S. that merit positive attention while others that merit scrutiny, investigation for conflicts of interest, and potentially litigation for misleading claims or even criminal charges. On the list of those more likely to be found in the first category beyond the manufactured home industry and MHARR a case can be made for the Capital Research Center (CRC) and the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). Earlier this year in a matter that specifically looked at a manufactured housing placement case, the PLF successfully went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, where PLF represented George Sheetz in a case that reportedly included a manufactured home. That will be examined in Part II, including the obvious question: why didn’t the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) and its allied bloggers and publications – or MHI itself – mention that ruling on their websites? The CRC and their Influence Watch are among the more common sources MHProNews routinely turns to for routinely reliable information on a range of nonprofits, economic and political issues. PLF has also done some important work on behalf of free enterprise and constitutional rights linked causes as this fact, evidence, and analysis (FEA) will explore.
As detail-minded regular readers of MHProNews will note, while manufactured housing isn’t specified in this book review, it is arguably in the background.
In Part I provides the narrative review by attorney Stilson of PLF VP Burling’s book; Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis. But it is also useful to complete the promo found on Amazon, which continued as follows.
For more than a century, government policies and court decisions have attacked, undermined, and eroded private property rights. Whether it be exclusionary zoning, eminent domain abuse, rent control, or excessive environmental regulations, the cumulative impact of these assaults on private property is that it’s become increasingly difficult—or even impossible—to build adequate housing supplies to meet market demands. We are fast approaching a time when millions of typical Americans will, quite literally, have nowhere to live.
Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis, takes readers through the history of how we got here. With stories going back to the Civil War, the early twentieth century, and the ill-fated “urban renewal” movement of the 1950s, Nowhere to Live reveals how the government layered mistake upon mistake to create the current crisis. It also provides a way out: not by government fiat, but through the restoration of private property rights.
The late President Ronald Reagan said: “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” As Part II will note, the Wilsonian era of U.S. history spawned a steady growth of government that oddly and routinely failed to deliver what progressive proponents of expanded governmental agencies and powers claimed they would achieve.
Part I
Nowhere to Live? Blame the Government
For those wondering how America’s unaffordable housing market became exactly that, Pacific Legal Foundation vice president James S. Burling has an answer—or rather, a series of answers—in his new book Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis.
For conservatives, it should come as little surprise that so many of the root causes ultimately stem from restrictions on property rights imposed by all levels of government. These have combined to distort the housing market in a manner which artificially inflates prices for all, and even denies a home entirely to some.
“Government, Get out of Their Way!”
At the most basic level, the housing crisis is a problem of supply and demand. We’re not building as many new homes as we require. It sounds simple, but Burling’s analysis focuses on what is causing this imbalance, which a free market should otherwise default toward correcting. This is a considerably more complex undertaking. He argues that a range of government interventions stretching back generations have choked off the ability of supply to effectively meet demand. This in turn keeps home prices high. “The bottom line,” Burling writes, “is that we need less interference with the free market in housing, not more.”
The bulk of Nowhere to Live is dedicated to discussing the factors that have contributed to the housing predicament which Americans have collectively found themselves in, as Burling sees it. He devotes several chapters to zoning, explaining how it depresses the housing supply—often in areas where demand is highest and to the disproportionate detriment of racial and ethnic minorities. Laws and regulations—particularly of the environmental variety—also drive up the costs of building homes while injecting considerable delay and uncertainty into the development and construction process. There is also the problem of eminent domain abuse, and in some localities the lurking specter of rent control. Despite being perhaps the paradigmatic example of a “consensus bad idea” among economists, rent control still finds favor among the progressive Left. The Biden Administration recently proposed implementing it on a national scale.
Written by a property rights attorney, Nowhere to Live pays special attention to the court cases that have shaped the relevant legal landscape. Indeed, for those of us who happened to have taken a well-taught law school course in land use planning more than a decade ago, the book stirs long-dormant memories of digesting Euclid v. Ambler, Kelo v. City of New London, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, and other important Supreme Court precedents. Readers may well be struck by just how much influence the federal judiciary has had in shaping a political issue as intensely local as housing.
Burling acknowledges that the reforms he believes are necessary will likely not come easy. There are powerful vested interests in preserving the status quo, deleterious as much of it may be. Not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) sentiments are prevalent, powerful, and bipartisan. Single-family zoning exists because it is broadly popular among those who own such homes. Even attempts to reform the particularly onerous California Environmental Quality Act in Burling’s home state—which is ground zero for the housing crisis—have thus far been successfully opposed by what he calls “the iron triangle of NIMBYs, environmental lawyers, and labor unions.”
This does not prevent Burling from offering up some ideas, and the final chapters of Nowhere to Live detail a series of property rights principles and associated policy recommendations that he argues will help reverse a housing crisis that has been more than a century in the making. The book ends with a call for Americans to “Let builders build! Let people have the homes they need! And more than anything: Government, get out of their way!”
Environmental Lawfare
Although the problems detailed in Nowhere to Live are largely traceable to government, from the perspective of one who studies such things, it is notable how activist groups can exploit and exacerbate these problems by for their own purposes. This may be most evident in the realm of left-wing environmentalism, where the motivating incentives are often diametrically opposed to those which would favor the construction of more housing.
For instance, one of the book’s chapters explains how the Endangered Species Act—which Burling pithily characterizes as “a useful tool for those wishing to stop things”—has been exploited to stifle various human-benefiting land uses, such as housing construction. He quotes Andy Stahl, currently executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics but who once worked at the group now known as Earthjustice, as having described the Act’s importance to halting logging as follows: “Thank goodness the spotted owl evolved in the Northwest, for if it hadn’t, we’d have to genetically engineer it. It’s the perfect species for use as a surrogate.”
One especially memorable tale of obstructionist environmental lawfare from Nowhere to Live involves the Tejon Ranch housing development north of Los Angeles. First proposed in 1999, the developers subsequently endured more than 20 years of lawsuits from activist groups including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Audubon California, Climate Resolve, the California Native Plant Society, and, most importantly, the Center for Biological Diversity. The envisioned homes still have not been built.
Burling understandably spends only a few pages dealing with the particular litigiousness of the Center for Biological Diversity, which he calls “an organization that is dedicated to stopping all development on undeveloped land.” Some further research reveals that the group managed to file 266 separate environmental lawsuits against the Trump Administration in just four years. It’s approach to activist litigation can be illustrated through a collection of quotations from its executive director Kieran Suckling, compiled by the Southwestern Communities Coalition. For example, he once likened the group’s strategy to boxing, explaining that “we hit them once and before they have a chance to recover we hit them again, and we keep hammering away until they fall down.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is well-funded too. Tax filings reveal that in 2023 it reported over $34.4 million in total revenue, and that it has brought in at least $20 million annually since 2017. Major funders have included donor-advised fund providers such as the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund (over $12.7 million from 2018 to 2023) and the Foundation for the Carolinas (over $10.7 million from 2017 to 2022), as well as grantmakers such as the Sandler Foundation ($5.6 million from 2017 to 2023), the Schmidt Family Foundation (over $5.1 million from 2017 to 2022), and the Carroll Petrie Foundation ($2.65 million from 2019 to 2022).
A Worthwhile Read
Nowhere to Live is worth reading not just because it deals with an issue that is personally relevant to virtually every American, but because it delves into the often complex legal history involved. Housing is a hot-button political issue, and hot-button political issues are notoriously liable to oversimplification, misdirection, and sensationalism—temptations to which Burling does not succumb.
Burling draws upon his experience to show how the roots of America’s current housing crisis can be found in a web of laws and judicial precedents that all have the common denominator of restricting property rights. He argues that a societal reversion toward strengthening those rights offers a promising path forward. If that comes to pass, affordable housing would be just one of the positive outcomes.
Robert Stilson
Robert runs several of CRC’s specialized projects. Originally from Indiana, he has a B.A. from Hanover College and a J.D. from University of Richmond School of Law, where he graduated…
Part II – Additional Information with More MHProNews Facts-Evidence-Analysis (FEA)
In no particular order of importance are the following.
1) As was noted in the preface above, the Capital Research Center (CRC) obviously didn’t mention manufactured housing specifically. But CRC and Influence Watch have been periodic and useful resources for several topics that directly and/or indirectly impact manufactured housing. Pages of example of CRC research referenced on MHProNews are linked here.
2) Earlier this year, the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) issued the following statement regarding their 18th successful case before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
Pacific Legal Foundation just won its 18th Supreme Court victory! Join us for a virtual discussion to learn more about the case, Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, and how it helps secure property rights (and lower housing costs) for everyone.
When George Sheetz wanted to build a modest manufactured home on the property he bought in El Dorado Country, California, the government told him he was going to have to pay a “traffic impact fee” of more than $23,000 in exchange for a building permit. Even worse, the fee would go toward projects that were not tied to the actual impact of George’s home.
George challenged the fee as an unconstitutional abuse of the permitting process. On April 12, the Supreme Court sided with George in a unanimous decision. At this post-victory discussion, attendees will hear from Paul Beard, the former PLF attorney now at Pierson Ferdinand who argued George’s case before the Court. You’ll also hear from PLF attorney Brian Hodges, who worked on George’s case, and Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Chance Weldon as they break down the Sheetz decision and its significance for property rights and housing costs.
According to the SCOTUS case syllabus linked here, the dwelling was described as a “prefabricated home” which of course is one way to describe a manufactured home. It is PLF in their remarks above that state that the dwelling in question is a “modest manufactured home.”
Which sparked the following search.
3) Consider the next two Q&As (chats) with left-leaning Bing’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered Copilot.
Copilot, in a search for “Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, California” in an online search I could not find any reference to the Manufactured Housing Institute having commented on or filed an amicus brief in that case. Can you find any reference to the Sheetz v. County of El Dorado on any online platform by the Institute including their associated bloggers and trade publishers?
Would you like more information on this case or any other related topics? …”
MHProNews Note: it is apparent that the CBIA and NAHB had an interest in this case. So, they filed an amicus brief in support of Sheetz. Where was the Manufactured Housing Institute and/or their state affiliate?
4)
Copilot, while this case doesn’t mention the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 is it fair to say that the Manufactured Housing Institute could have contacted the plaintiffs and suggested that “enhanced preemption” could have been raised as an additional argument in that matter, given that Pacific Legal Foundation says that the home involved was a manufactured home? Isn’t this another example of an apparent miss by the Institute that seems to be more focused on consolidation of the industry by its influential insider brands while posturing and paying lip service to support robust industry growth in production?
Your observation about the Institute’s focus on industry consolidation and its support for robust industry growth is also thought-provoking. It does raise questions about whether the Institute is prioritizing the interests of influential insider brands over broader industry support and advocacy.
Do you think the Institute should be more proactive in supporting individual homeowners and smaller manufacturers in legal matters like these? …”
5) The next Q&As with Copilot round out the picture about MHI’s apparent disinterest in using the legal channel as a means of opening up new opportunities for HUD Code manufactured homes.
Other than the Manufactured Housing Institute and Texas Manufactured Housing Association case against the DOE and Secretary Jennifer Granholm matter regarding the manufactured housing energy rule, can you find any evidence that the Institute is involved in any other legal action as a form of advocacy on behalf of the manufactured housing industry?
Would you like more information on MHI’s advocacy efforts or any other related topics? …”
6)
Zoning expert and attorney Daniel R. Mandelker published remarks via the Lincoln Institute that said in part that the manufactured housing industry needed a nonprofit that focuses on effective lobbying and litigation, isn’t that correct? While Mandelker didn’t mention the Manufactured Housing Institute, in essence, isn’t the implication that the Institute is failing the industry at doing its own claimed job properly and effectively? The fact that the Institute isn’t involved in any other litigation other than the DOE case that the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR), MHProNews, and MHLivingNews arguably helped shamed the Institute into is indirect evidence of Mandelker’s remarks, isn’t that correct? Lastly, MHARR offered in 2019 to coordinate with MHI and/or an MHI state association affiliate to litigate enhanced preemption, but MHI and those states didn’t accept that offer, right? Correct, confirm or clarify as needed and provide specific results.
Regarding the Manufactured Housing Institute’s (MHI) involvement in litigation, it appears that beyond the DOE case, MHI hasn’t been significantly involved in other legal actions as a form of advocacy. This aligns with Mandelker’s observation about the need for more robust support for the industry.
As for the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR)‘s offer in 2019 to coordinate with MHI or state associations for litigation on enhanced preemption, it seems that MHI and the state associations did not accept this offer. This could be seen as a missed opportunity for MHI to engage more proactively in legal advocacy.
Would you like to explore more about MHARR’s efforts or any other related topics?
…”
7)
8) So, there is clearly more to the troubling story about why there is ‘nowhere affordable or available to live.’ Yes, the government is an apparent factor. But there are also other systemic failures. MHProNews would respectfully suggest that CRC/Influence Watch do an analysis of the controversies related to the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI). Other researchers and media who look at manufactured housing as a proven free market solution to the need for more affordable housing should look carefully at MHI’s apparent failures to advance the industry on a range of issues. Because the production trends graphic speaks volumes on why there is so little affordable housing and why the pace of manufactured housing production dropped after legislation intended to benefit the industry failed to get properly implemented and thus failed to deliver the expected results. Congressional hearings held about the failure to get the 2000 Reform Law properly implemented are just some of the evidence that need to be considered by objective and truth-seeking researchers and reporters.
When the percentage of home ownership is higher in Europe and dozens nations than it is in the U.S., that should be a red-flag for researchers, public officials, and public policy professionals.
But it isn’t just CRC, PLF, MHARR or others that have raised the problems of various local-state or the federal government’s respective role in foster the affordable housing crisis.
9) The saying “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” was first used by politician Anthony Weldon in 16501234. MHI continues to posture and provide lip service to ‘efforts’ to ‘grow the industry.’ MHI does a fine job of promoting itself while ignoring their own failure to perform at its own core efforts.
But when a closer look at the issues raised in this report, including the opportunities to create tie-ins with Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis, or getting involved in the Sheetz case – or any others – to promote litigation as a solution to overcoming zoning barriers, are just added pieces of evidence that MHI is failing at its own claimed jobs. These failures have been carefully documented by MHARR, MHProNews, MHLivingNews, and others. See the linked reports to learn more, because the need to either get MHI to do their job, or to hold them legally accountable for not doing their job, and to get good existing laws enforced continues. Programming notice. Developments with an MHI-corporate member report is pending. Watch for it.
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By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
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