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• A pair of Democrats are proposing legislation to limit rent increases in Wisconsin’s manufactured home communities, require inspections and make it easier for residents to purchase communities through cooperatives. 

• It’s a response to gaps in state oversight that leave residents vulnerable to deteriorating conditions and dramatic rent hikes.

• Private equity companies are increasingly purchasing manufactured housing communities, spurring concerns.

Democratic lawmakers are proposing to limit rent increases in Wisconsin’s manufactured home communities as residents voice concerns over steep rent hikes and the growing influence of large, out-of-state owners.

The proposal is part of broader legislation to protect residents of communities often called mobile home parks. Proposed by Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, and Rep. Jodi Emerson, D-Eau Claire, the bill would also require annual state inspections and make it easier for residents to purchase communities through cooperatives.

The lawmakers say they aim “to preserve one of Wisconsin’s last remaining sources of truly affordable housing.”

Without Republican support, the bill is unlikely to advance during the current legislative session. The Legislature will wrap up most action by the end of March. The sponsors hope the proposal will build momentum for future action. 

“We got to start somewhere,” Smith said. “We got to protect people.”

Priced out of traditional homes during an affordability crisis, thousands in Wisconsin have turned to manufactured housing as a more achievable path to ownership. Most own their home but pay a monthly fee for the land it sits on, and they are responsible for maintenance of their homes. While that model brings promise, gaps in state oversight leave residents vulnerable to deteriorating conditions and dramatic rent hikes, a previous WPR and Wisconsin Watch investigation found.  

In announcing the bill, Smith’s office highlighted how private equity firms are increasingly purchasing manufactured home communities — often leading to higher rent and less responsive park management. 

The bill would cap rent increases at 2% or 4% annually, depending on federal Consumer Price Index data.

Such a change would benefit people like Troy Wadina, who lives in Harbor Heights, a Racine County manufactured home community. His rent increased by roughly 18% this year alone.

“I had planned on staying here forever, and now I’m completely out of luck,” Wadina said. “I don’t want to leave.”

He bought his manufactured home in 2020. His parents lived across the street.

“We love being in this community. I know all my neighbors by name. Where do you get that?” Wadina asked.

But in 2024 the community sold to Illinois-based Ravinia Communities, which owns manufactured home communities across 10 states. It increased Wadina’s monthly rent by $95 last year and will add another $95 beginning in March.

Wadina didn’t learn of the sale until it was finalized.

Under the proposed legislation, he and his neighbors would have received a notice of a potential sale and 60 days to submit their own offer to buy the community. The bill would also offer a tax incentive to owners who sell to a resident-owned cooperative or nonprofit approved by the majority of residents.

Wadina isn’t sure he can handle any further increases. On top of his day job as a sales representative, he’s now selling items online to keep up. 

Ravinia defended its rent increases in an email to Wisconsin Watch. Rents under the previous owner failed to keep pace with the market, the company wrote, adding that rents at Harbor Heights remain lower than comparable communities. 

Ravinia said it encouraged residents to contact management for information about potential hardship assistance but no one has done so. 

The legislation would have limited Wadina’s monthly increase to around $20 unless Ravinia detailed to residents why growing operating expenses necessitated a greater increase.

Amy Bliss, executive director of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance, a manufactured housing trade association, opposes the bill as written. 

Capping rent would hurt owners’ ability to maintain their properties and cause investors and developers to put their money elsewhere, she wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch.

“Wisconsin Housing Alliance is happy to work with legislators to make meaningful reforms to keep rents in Wisconsin lower,” the statement said. “We do not agree that this bill will accomplish any of that.” 

Additionally, Bliss added, residents can already offer to purchase their communities through cooperatives, an ownership model that doesn’t always keep costs down or succeed in the long term. Requiring owners to notify residents during a potential sale could be a “restraint of free trade,” she said.

Limiting property tax increases and loosening municipal restrictions on manufactured housing development would more effectively bring down prices, Bliss added.

Smith and Emerson said they are open to feedback and potential changes to their legislation, particularly if it brings bipartisan support.

“Some affordability and some safety is better than having no guardrails on it at all,” Emerson said. 

The bill will need Republican support to draw a public hearing. Smith doubts that will happen during his competitive reelection campaign. 

A similar bill has received bipartisan support in Pennsylvania, said Steve Carlson, co-founder and board president of the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance, a nonprofit organization pushing for stronger resident protections that helped draft the legislation.

“Affordable housing is not a partisan issue,” Carlson said.

Wadina and his neighbors formed a resident association last year. But with no other mechanism to prevent further rent increases, association members are urging their elected representatives to support the legislation. 

The campaign has already yielded some intangible benefits. 

“We’re a lot closer now as a community than we were before,” Wadina said. “We’re doing the best we can to support each other.”

Bill would limit rent hikes in Wisconsin mobile home parks is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Dementia Innovations, a nonprofit started in Sheboygan County, is developing what it describes as the first U.S. village where people diagnosed with dementia will live and own homes.
• Unlike a traditional risk-averse memory care facility with locked doors, homeowners at Livasu, short for “living as usual,”  will be free to navigate the village with support from staff.
• It’s similar to a European model. Experts say the village care model is difficult to replicate in the litigious U.S., but Livasu’s founders hope the village will show it can work in Wisconsin and other states.
• To limit costs, the village is using manufactured homes, a more affordable alternative to site-built options.

A row of footprints followed John and Terri Cooper, both 70, as they carefully navigated an icy road near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. They stopped at a row of concrete slabs. 

“This is our house,” John said, waving at the first snow-covered block.

“It’s pretty big,” Terri added while standing on the foundation.

As they do every Sunday, the Coopers had driven around 20 miles from their independent living community to the construction site of their soon-to-be home. John flies a drone over the neighborhood taking shape around it, which will include a grocery store, a spa and a gym. He photographs progress on the 45-acre development designed specifically for people like Terri, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

The couple has moved a lot during their 50-year marriage. But this summer’s move will be different from all the others.

Dementia Innovations, a nonprofit started in Sheboygan County, is developing what it describes as the first U.S. village where people diagnosed with dementia will live and own homes. It’s similar to a European model that encourages people with memory loss to remain more independent. The Sheboygan County village, Livasu, short for “living as usual,” will allow people with dementia to live alone or with loved ones and continue typical routines from their homes as their disease progresses.

Applauded for years in other countries, experts say the village care model is difficult to replicate in the U.S. Livasu’s founders hope the estimated $14 million village will show it can work in Wisconsin and other states.

To limit costs, the village is using manufactured homes, a more affordable alternative to site-built options. People will buy their home and set hours of caregiving, depending on their level of need.

Unlike a traditional risk-averse memory care facility with locked doors, homeowners will be free to travel throughout the village with support from staff.

“We all take risks every day, but as we age, and especially as we age with dementia, there’s a safety-at-all-cost approach,” said Livasu’s project lead, Mary Pitsch. “That cost is actually a loss of personhood.” 

Rather than a fence surrounding the village or automatically locking doors, landscaping will direct people from their home toward the community’s “downtown.” People living in the village’s 124 houses will have access to a lodge with support staff and a place to eat meals with neighbors and to watch the Packers, Pitsch said.

The village will eventually feature a public grocery store and a restaurant.

“We are changing the way we are thinking about care and support,” Pitsch said.

Aging at home — together

The Coopers met in college. 

“I picked Terri out almost immediately. It took me some months to convince her that I was the right guy,” John joked.

“Thankfully,” Terri chimed in with a laugh.

As the couple raised two daughters, John worked different technology jobs and photographed sporting events like triathlons on the weekends. Terri was a structural steel detailer. 

After watching her mother battle Alzheimer’s, Terri made sure to eat healthy and exercise to prevent herself from getting the same disease. But in 2019, John started noticing changes. Two years later, Terri was officially diagnosed. 

“I mean right now,” she asked John outside of the Livasu construction site,  “I think I’m OK, right?” 

“Yeah, you’re great!” he responded emphatically, prompting another round of laughs.

Terri shook her head.

“This is what I live with,” she said.

The couple moved into an independent living center over a year ago after John was diagnosed with two forms of cancer that are now in remission.

“We wanted to be someplace where, if I was gone, Terri could live and have people take care of her,” John said. “That’s still the goal.”

Unlike institutional settings, Livasu will allow them to age in their home together.

Manufactured housing brings savings 

The Coopers are excited to again own a home, even if it’s smaller than they’re used to.

First they left their 2,400 square foot home in Neenah for a 1,500 square foot duplex. Their future manufactured home in Livasu measures just 1,140 square feet, John said. But unlike the independent living duplex they rented, they are purchasing this home.

Home prices in Livasu currently range between $95,000 and $175,000 — less than traditional site-built houses. 

Like with any manufactured homes, savings come from finding scale in mass production, with factories buying materials in bulk and cutting down material waste through computer design. 

The Livasu homes are built off-site, limiting construction time and noise as people move in at different times, Pitsch said. The homes have a title, similar to a car, instead of a traditional deed. That will make transferring the homes between owners easier.

Terri Cooper lived in a mobile home during one year at college, John recalled. But today’s manufactured homes are higher quality, he said. 

“They’re actually built pretty nice,” he said.

Every detail is designed for someone aging with dementia, Pitsch explained while walking through a model home placed outside the Livasu construction zone. 

More lights in each house help aging eyes. Dark door handles contrast to lightly painted doors. The homes feature safer electric stoves instead of gas.

While homes in most manufactured housing communities — traditionally called “mobile home parks” — have stairs,  Livasus will place homes at ground level.

Bedrooms will have a direct line of sight to the toilet, which can help prevent incontinence.

“The shower was a big discussion. Do you have glass doors? Do you have a shower curtain?” Pitsch remembered debating with the other designers. 

“Lots of conversations about some things that would seem really simple, were long conversations,” she said, “and we made the best decisions we could.”

Dignity in dementia care

Pitsch, a social worker, developed her passion for this work while working with older adults. She has run an at-home care company with her husband for close to 20 years. She learned Sheboygan-area law enforcement often responded to emergencies involving people with dementia. 

She and other community members started a task force to evaluate the county’s response to residents with dementia. That prompted changes in the county’s emergency protocols and the creation of Dementia Innovations.

“I’m kind of one of those people that if it’s not me, then who’s going to do it?” Pitsch said.

Pitsch and others started planning a way to better care for people with dementia and to prevent emergency situations in the first place. They learned about Hogeweyk, the world’s first dementia village in the Netherlands.

“We are far behind other countries in a better, humanistic way of providing care for those with dementia,” Pitsch said.

Dementia care in the U.S. tends to prioritize safety above all else, said Emily Roberts, an associate professor at Oklahoma State University who researches the connection between older adults and their physical environment. 

Creating environments where people can make choices and take risks can be expensive, especially in a litigious country like the U.S., she said.

Support staff in Livasu will regularly monitor the grounds. Cameras can alert them if someone walks in or out of the village through an unexpected area.

Creating a home-like environment also prevents people from wanting to leave, Roberts said. As the number of people with dementia continues to grow, the country will need more environments that support people with dementia, she said. That’s especially true in aging Wisconsin.

A private room in a nursing home cost $127,750 on average in the U.S., according to the Alzheimer’s Association — more than a smaller home at Livasu. Village residents will pay for care as they need it, similar to at-home care, and potential homeowners discuss their finances with Livasu volunteers, Pitsch said. 

Livasu raised more than $8 million for the first phase of construction. It still needs to raise around $6 million more to complete the entire village, but the first houses are already waiting to get placed on foundations.

Pitsch recently watched as a construction crew drove excavators and bulldozers over the giant field where a restaurant, post office and ice cream shop will eventually go. 

“I pinch myself,” Pisch said. “It gets pretty emotional actually, to see that it’s actually happening,” 

‘Wherever she goes, I go’

When the Coopers move in, they don’t expect to need any caretaking. They still make weekly visits to see their grandkids and take weeks-long hiking, camping and cycling excursions.

“Wherever I go, she goes, wherever she goes, I go. Except in the women’s bathroom,” John said, eliciting more laughs from Terri.

“We kind of like each other, so that’s OK.” 

As the couple finished checking in on construction of their future community, they carefully walked back to their car — holding hands the entire way.

‘Living as usual’: A new village in Sheboygan County reimagines life with dementia is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Last winter, I got an intriguing story tip: Many Wisconsin manufactured home communities were operating with expired licenses. 

I didn’t initially know much about these communities, often called mobile home parks, where residents own their homes but rent the land they sit on. I quickly learned they provide a critical source of affordable housing in Wisconsin and beyond — the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. 

Housing experts and advocates told me private equity’s growing interest in the model threatens to change that. My reporting found that Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for owners. Still, some residents and groups see pathways for safe, affordable manufactured home ownership as a solution during an affordability crisis. 

That required talking to owners of manufactured homes across the state, starting with a February drive from Wisconsin Watch’s Madison newsroom to snowy La Crosse. There I met with a couple who moved into their manufactured home more than a decade ago. That meeting led to a months-long tour of similar communities. 

A Cumberland couple showed me their favorite part of their manufactured home, the fireplace. I passed out flyers in Richland Center and Spring Green, chatting with a surprising number of people who answered their doors.

As the weather warmed, I walked up to chatty neighbors sitting on porches in Wisconsin Dells. Menomonie residents stopped their yard work to talk. I left a set of Fond du Lac park interviews sunburned after standing on a porch for too long as residents lent me their time and perspectives. 

Not every homeowner’s experience made it into our “Forgotten homes” series, named after a lawmaker’s reference to the homes as “a forgotten segment of real estate.” But they often shared a lot of similarities. Here are some of my takeaways:

1. Park ownership is changing. While some residents said they know the person who owns their park, others were paying rent to out-of-state companies. Some mentioned concerns about what would happen to their homes once their local owner decides to sell. 

2. Residents don’t always know where to turn when conditions deteriorate. Wisconsin uses a patchwork of state and local agencies to monitor different aspects of manufactured home communities. That leaves residents unsure of where to complain about issues or unaware they have that option. 

3. People want to stay in their homes. Even as some residents face surging monthly payments, they struggle with the idea of giving up the space, independence and yards.

4. Owning a manufactured home outside of a park can be complicated. Wisconsin Habitat for Humanity affiliates are developing factory-built housing in residential neighborhoods. But local zoning can block certain homes from residential neighborhoods. And other park residents mentioned needing more money to purchase land themselves.

5. Manufactured homeowners often face stigma but are proud of their homes. Residents showed me carefully decorated lawns, peaceful walking routes through parks, kitchens with custom cabinets and the homes of their longtime neighbors and friends. 

Wisconsin’s forgotten homes: Takeaways from investigating manufactured housing is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.