Funding Gap for Mobile Homeowners

Approximately 13,000 mobile home park sites exist in Kent County offering affordable housing options to many vulnerable homeowners. In an average year, Home Repair Services serves 160 low-income mobile homeowners of all ages. In a typical year, one third of those clients are under the age of 60 – many with children. Unlike mobile homeowners aged 60 and above, there is no municipal funding support for critical health and safety repairs. The funding gap experienced by Home Repair Services to extend repair support to mobile homeowners, in mobile home parks is approximately $83,000 per year.

Our Repair Program is a "homeownership retention program" designed to preserve homeownership rates in Kent County by keeping affordable housing units safe and in the hands or lower income residents. Low-income homeowners can often live in deteriorated houses and typically have limited resources available for proactive home maintenance measures or to cover more significant improvements as they come along. Many of our clients live in older homes or mobile homes, so the presence of multiple health and safety hazards can be widespread.

For our mobile home clients, unlike traditional stick-built homes, the materials used in their unit’s construction have shorter life spans. And to make matters worse, when those materials fail, they are specialized to mobile homes, making the replacement parts more expensive and challenging to find. The average mobile homeowner served by HRS makes $20,581 per year, and 35% of their gross income goes toward loan servicing, taxes, or mobile home park rent. Any minor repair or accessibility issue can put these highly vulnerable homeowners in harm's way both physically and financially.

For example, when a mobile home water heater or furnace fails, the homeowner is confronted with replacement costs that average $2,200 for the water heater and $4,300 for the furnace. Both of these repairs are well beyond the means of someone with a household income of $20,581, but they are also 25% higher than a conventional water heater or furnace. The same is true for mobile home entry doors, which are nontraditional sizes, built with sub-standard material, and cost more. Because addressing these repairs are expensive, low-income residents often leave the conditions unresolved resulting in unsafe environments and over-reliance on “work around” solutions like electric space heaters.

We need help bridging this funding gap. Will you help us today?