January 24, 2023 — Testimony

Manufactured housing is the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the United States. H.B. 23 would go a long way to stabilize and improve manufactured home communities in Maryland, and the lives of the people – many of whom are low or moderate income – who live there.

NCLC has long had a focus on manufactured housing. Our manufactured housing webpage highlights our many reports, issue briefs, agency comments, and testimony on these issues. Of particular relevance for this bill, we have published a Policy Guide on Promoting Resident Ownership of Communities. The Policy Guide is accompanied by a compendium of the full text of all state laws on the subject. NCLC is also the author of the widely-cited AARP publication Manufactured Housing Community Tenants: Shifting the Balance of Power (2004), which analyzed state manufactured home community statutes in the fifty states.

House Bill 23 has a number of key features that promise to make it an effective law that gives residents of manufactured home communities a realistic, practical opportunity to buy the land on which their homes sit.