Insufficient Tenant Protections Leave Manufactured Home Park Residents in Florida Vulnerable to Displacement

By Katie Renzi, Research Intern and Sarah Abdelhadi, Manager, State and Local Research  

A recent article published in Urban Studies, “Eviction from Manufactured Home Parks”, examines the unique vulnerabilities faced by residents of manufactured home parks (MHPs). MHP residents typically own their homes but rent the land beneath the home. Manufactured homes are an important source of affordable housing for lower-income households but are expensive and sometimes impossible to relocate if a household is evicted from their MHP; as a result, evicted MHP residents face not only displacement but also possible loss of a major financial investment. Drawing on data from Florida, the study documents dual forms of displacement: eviction of individual households filed through the court system and mass displacements due to park closures. The findings show that while court-based eviction filing rates in MHPs were generally lower than for conventional renters, park closures and ownership changes were critical and under-recognized catalysts of MHP resident displacement. The authors suggest that targeted rental assistance and strengthening eviction protections could help alleviate the risk of displacement. 

To examine the scale and drivers of displacement in MHPs communities, the researchers created a dataset of registered MHPs in Florida between 2012 and 2022 and their associated eviction filings. Identifying MHP parcels required several sources, including the Florida Department of Revenue and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, also yielding property sales, ownership, and closure data. The Shimberg Center for Housing Studies provided eviction filings from each of the state’s 67 county courts sorted by defendant addresses. The datasets were merged using spatial joins and address-matching, identifying 2,383 registered MHPs and matching approximately 85% of the 65,122 MHP eviction filings to specific parcels. Additional analyses used five-year demographic data from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey across more than 1,500 Census tracts with MHPs. 

The authors found that manufactured home park residents had lower annual eviction filing rates (1.9%) than renters overall in Florida (5.0%), with MHP evictions accounting for less than 6% of all filings over the study period. However, filings were highly concentrated: one-third of all MHP eviction cases originated from just 100 parks, or 2.4% of all MHPs operating during the study period. The study also found that among MHPs that were sold, eviction filings increased by 40% on average in the six months following the park sale, suggesting that changes in ownership may be an important driver of housing instability for MHP residents. 

In addition to court-ordered evictions, mass displacements due to park closures were a considerable source of housing loss. These closures often occurred outside formal eviction processes and thus are not captured in court data, even though they result in full community displacement. Between 2012 and 2022, 127 registered MHPs were permanently closed, resulting in the removal of over 6,000 units—an added 9.4% increase in evictions beyond what was captured in court records. Park closures were observed across urban, suburban, and rural areas, with notable clustering in North Florida.  

Eviction risk also varied by neighborhood characteristics. Census tracts with high MHP eviction rates (>5%) were more likely to be urban, located in North Florida, have higher shares of Black residents and households with incomes below the poverty line, and lower percentages of elderly residents. In contrast, tracts with low filing rates (<2%) were more likely to be rural, located in South Florida, have higher proportions of elderly and white residents, and exhibit higher vacancy rates (suggesting they are more likely to be seasonal homes). These findings reveal stark geographic and demographic disparities in eviction vulnerability among MHP residents. 

The study concludes that while manufactured housing remains a vital source of unsubsidized affordable housing, the land-lease model exposes residents to unique and often unregulated forms of displacement. While Florida’s existing policies, including a right of first refusal for park purchases and limited relocation aid, provide a foundation for protection lacking in most other states, they still fall short of meeting the scale of need. Florida has more MHPs than any state except California, and about one in every 14 occupied housing units is a manufactured home. The authors recommend several policy responses: increased relocation assistance, extended notice periods for eviction, emergency rental assistance for small debts, and stronger support for resident-led ownership models. They also note the limitations of court data, which miss mass displacements and informal evictions, and call for future research on ownership structures and outcomes in other states. 

The article can be found at: http://bit.ly/4kjWjlF