Giving Compass' Take:

• Jung Hyun Choi and Laurie Goodman explain that even though manufactured home renters and owners are more vulnerable than other renters and homeowners, they have been left out of COVID-19 pandemic assistance policies. 

• What role can you play in ensuring that the most vulnerable populations get the support they need to weather the pandemic? 

• Read about centering equity in your COVID-19 response. 

In analyses of COVID-19’s effects on the housing market, the manufactured housing sector is largely overlooked. Nearly 22 million people, or 7 percent of US households, live in manufactured housing. Manufactured homes make up about 3 percent of housing in urban areas and 15 percent in rural areas, and 71 percent of these units are owner occupied.

These 22 million renters and owners tend to have lower incomes and work in industries that are vulnerable to the pandemic, yet these households mostly fall outside the protections offered by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. As policymakers negotiate the next round of coronavirus relief, will they support these families?

Owners and renters of manufactured homes are more likely than residents of other housing types to work in industries that have suffered significant job losses during the pandemic.

The median income of manufactured homeowners ($38,087) is well below the $79,800 for single-family owner-occupants. In fact, the median income of manufactured home owners is comparable with that of renters in other housing types. The median income of manufactured home renters is lower than for any other group.

Despite their greater vulnerability, most owners of manufactured homes do not qualify for CARES Act forbearance relief, because 77 percent of all new manufactured homes are titled as “personal property” rather than “real estate.” Of the homes titled as personal property, only Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Title 1 loans (which allow for the purchase of the structure alone and are a tiny subset of the market) qualify for CARES Act forbearance. To take out a mortgage, the manufactured home must be titled as real property. In most states, this requires the borrower to own both the structure and the land it is sited on. Some mortgages on manufactured homes are federally backed, hence triggering CARES Act coverage, but others are not. Mortgages on manufactured home structures alone are called chattel loans, which are generally held in the portfolio of the originating institution and serviced by this institution. It is therefore up to each mortgage servicer to determine whether it wants to offer forbearance and on what terms.

Renters also did not receive immediate relief. The CARES Act eviction moratorium, which expired July 24, did not apply to most renters in manufactured homes, with two exceptions: the manufactured home parks financed with federally backed mortgages (2,400 out of 45,000) and the few investor-owned properties with federal loans. Eviction moratoriums that some cities and states imposed are also expiring. And though many manufactured home renters received the weekly $600 federal unemployment benefits, those expired on July 31, and the status of a replacement payment is unclear at the time of this writing.

Read the full article about manufactured home renters and owners by Jung Hyun Choi and Laurie Goodman at Urban Institute.