Palouse trailer parks form community cooperative

Four mobile home parks in the region recently voted to form a cooperative in order to counteract some of the issues they experience. 

Residents of all four mobile home communities in the area are facing rent hikes of between 11% and 101%. (See accompanying chart) 

According to the National Cooperative Business Association, manufactured housing is susceptible to unique concerns. Since residents only own their homes, and not the land that their homes are on, they can be subject to poor infrastructure. This issue was exemplified by the Appaloosa Court situation when residents experienced problems with their water supply.   

In March, Victoria O’Banion, marketing and acquisitions specialist of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center, spoke to residents about the processes and end goal for forming a cooperative. 

Many of these manufactured home cooperative efforts across the country are supported by the national nonprofit Resident Owned Communities USA. ROC USA affiliate networks navigate legal statutes to serve residents in different regions. O’Banion’s work is limited to Washington state and north Idaho.  

In Idaho, the relevant legal statute concerning cooperative action is the Manufactured Home Residency Act. Under this statute, if residents have formed an entity and notified the property owner of their intent to purchase, the property owner is required to notify the residents first when they decide to sell. 

O’Banion said that Hurst & Son are unlikely to sell soon because they only recently acquired multiple mobile home parks in Moscow. Since Idaho has no legal requirement for the property owner to initiate the sale of a property following resident notification of an intent to purchase, O’Banion noted that affected residents should expect the newly formed co-ops to be the very beginning of a long-term process. 

“Ultimately your end goal is to purchase the park, but we’re talking about years,” O’Banion said. 

Hurst & Son did not respond to request for comment. 

Syringa Mobile Home Park in Moscow is another stark reminder of how mismanagement and poor communication can lead to families being stranded without a home.  

Leonita Hormel is a professor at the University of Idaho teaching sociology, where she originally worked as an observer of the events that led to the now-defunct community that closed in 2017.  

Syringa Park was the home to over 100 mobile homes when the land was purchased by Magar E. Magar in the 1980s.  

Before Magar’s purchase, the park had issues with its design, where the land was originally used for farming. 

“For a farmer who decides that he wants to try his hand at designing a community, it’s basically a miniature city,” Hormel said. “He set up the water wells. Initially, there were up to eight water wells at one point, but none of them provided sufficient water for the number of people that were up to 100 households.” 

The original owner also designed the sewage lagoon system for Syringa. The issues from this system led to the Idaho Conservation League’s 2012 lawsuit against Magar as it began to pollute the South Fork Palouse River. Later in the next year, more evidence of the park’s neglect came to light as residents found themselves without water.  

Hormel said that the residents of Syringa were emboldened to speak out after their complaints got the attention of government organizations.   

However, due to the multitude of suits against Magar, the park ultimately closed in September of 2017, and residents were required to vacate within six months. 

“Syringa’s loss ended up being a huge lesson to other mobile home communities because they’ve felt vulnerable because of this feudalistic arrangement,” Hormel said. “(If I was a resident) I own my home and I’m responsible for my home, but at any time, the landlord can decide whether the rent goes up, and in Idaho, we’re not protected from that.” 

Many of the residents that lived in Syringa now live in other parks like Abiel, Appaloosa, Palouse Hills and Woodland Heights, all of which are now owned by Hurst & Son LLC.  

Hormel is currently working alongside residents at the parks to learn more about their situation and help form a community cooperative.  

“They just officially found that over 51% of all four communities have agreed to form a cooperative, which means that they’ve got a lot of legal protections now that they didn’t have before,” Hormel said. “We have a legal team, a legal aid clinic reading their leases. They just sent another letter to the corporation that owns these parks to warn them that they found many problems with the leases.” 

The chart below, provided by Hormel, shows what the proposed rent increases will be under Hurst & Son LLC ownership for the four mobile home parks. 

“Appaloosa, Palouse Hills and Abiel, three of the four mobile home communities, people who lived in Syringa moved there,” Hormel said. “(Now) imagine how fun it is that they went through that, and now they have to deal with seeing their rent hikes.” 

One of the factors that Hormel noted in her work is that 11% of Latah County families live in and rely on mobile home parks.  

“This idea that an increasing proportion of the population in the United States are not just working class, but there are more low-income working-class people who this is one of their last options for home ownership,” Hormel said. 

While these communities may not be close neighbors, joining this cooperative gives them a unique identity, according to Hormel.  

“Now it’s not just Appaloosa. Appaloosa’s part of a group of four mobile home communities,” Hormel said. 

Royce McCandless and Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected]