Idalia Shows Need to Protect Manufactured Homes
To make communities more resilient, authorities should bolster oversight of landlords and give residents a path to self-determination.
For all the threats posed by climate change to manufactured housing, curbing it isn’t the solution.
Photographer: Juan Manuel Barrero Bueno/Bloomberg
Some of the most enduring images of Hurricane Idalia will be the tree-battered and flood-damaged mobile and manufactured homes in the storm’s wake — a sight that’s become all too familiar in the coastal US. As Florida’s communities rebuild, government leaders everywhere must take steps to protect a key source of affordable housing in the age of climate change.
Nationwide, manufactured homes make up around 5% of occupied housing units and about 7% in Florida, according to American Housing Survey data. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is in the business of building them (Clayton Homes), and investors of all sizes (private equity and real estate investment trusts, as well as “mom and pop” business owners) have bought parks in recent years. On the whole, they provide accessible living in a stretch of the Sun Belt where home prices have rocketed skyward since the outset of the pandemic.