Trailer park

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A mobile home park in Bradenton, Florida Trailer Estates - Bradenton, Florida.jpg
A mobile home park in Bradenton, Florida

A trailer park, caravan park, mobile home park, mobile home community or manufactured home community is a temporary or permanent area for mobile homes and travel trailers. Advantages include low cost compared to other housing, and quick and easy moving to a new area (for example, when taking a job in a distant place while keeping the same home).

Contents

Trailer parks, especially in American culture, are stereotypically viewed as lower income housing for occupants living at or below the poverty line who have low social status. [1] [2] [3] [4] Despite the advances in trailer home technology, the trailer park image survives as evoked by a statement from Presidential adviser James Carville who, in the course of one of the Bill Clinton White House political scandals, suggested: "Drag $100 bills through trailer parks, there's no telling what you'll find," in reference to Paula Jones. [5]

Tornadoes and hurricanes often inflict serious damage on trailer parks, usually because the structures are not secured to the ground and their construction much less robust in high winds than regular houses. [6] [7] However, most modern manufactured homes are built to withstand high winds, using hurricane straps and proper foundations. [8]

By country

New Orleans in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina: A park in an unflooded part of town became the site of a FEMA trailer park for people whose homes were damaged or destroyed. Uptown25Jan06FEMAtrailerPark1.jpg
New Orleans in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina: A park in an unflooded part of town became the site of a FEMA trailer park for people whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

In the United States

Mobile home park in La Crosse County, Wisconsin Mobile home park.jpg
Mobile home park in La Crosse County, Wisconsin

The negative perception of trailer parks was not improved by the creation of emergency trailer parks by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina, the quality and temporary nature of which was disputed. [9]

Many stereotypes have developed about residents in trailer parks, which are similar to stereotypes of the poor. The term trailer trash is often used in the same vein as the derogatory American terms white trash and ghetto . [10] [11] Though trailer parks appear throughout the United States, they are often associated with the Deep South and rural areas. In Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, the Town Select Board debated the implementation of a moratorium preventing mobile or manufactured homes from being built or installed. [12] Trailer parks became viewed as a valuable asset in the late 2010s. During that decade, REITs, private equity funds, and middle-class people looking to escape the corporate world bought them up from small mom-and-pop owners. [13]

More recently referred to in the U.S. as "mobile home parks" or "manufactured housing communities", the stereotypes are often just that. [3] Retirement communities exist in many locales that permit mobile home parks as "55+ parks" in keeping with the Housing for Older Persons Act (HOPA). Generally, at least one homeowner in these communities must be age 55 or over, and those under age 18 are rarely permitted to live there. These can be gated communities with amenities, such as swimming pools, clubhouses and onsite maintenance. Homes are often permanently installed on foundations. But residents may not own the land their homes occupy.

Corporate investment

Mobile home parks in the U.S. have become an attractive investment for financial firms such as Carlyle Group, Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital. [14] [3] [2] In the early 2020s, an individual mobile home park can be sold in the tens of millions of dollars. [15] Over 100,000 US mobile home sites were estimated to be owned by large firms in 2019. [14] One firm, Stockbridge Capital Group, owner of about 200 mobile-home parks throughout the US, "saw a return on investment of more than 30 percent between late 2016 and the end of 2017." [14] The company's expansion into this market was facilitated by $1.3 billion in financing from Fannie Mae, which has called mobile homes "inherently affordable." [14] Profitability for the firms owning the parks has in some cases been tied to rent increases, and has not necessarily translated into good maintenance of the mobile homes. [14] Efforts are being mounted to allow trailer park residents a chance to buy their own trailer park and thus own the land they live on; for instance, in Colorado, trailer park owners must give residents 90 days' notice before selling. [16] In San Antonio, Texas, residents of the Mission Trails Mobile Home Community negotiated with developer White-Conlee who would be contracted to build luxury condominiums. [17]

Outside the United States

Trailer park at an industrial area in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, in 1988 Camping Rolandsduin in Wijk aan Zee onder de rook van de Hoogovens, Bestanddeelnr 934-2933.jpg
Trailer park at an industrial area in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, in 1988

Disputed trailer parks

While the majority of trailer parks are used as permanent residences, and are paid for in the usual way by residents, a minority are used by nomadic people who in some cases may be occupying them illegally.

In Britain and Ireland, the term halting site is sometimes used for some trailer parks. The biggest difference in Europe is the presence of unauthorised halting sites (or trailer parks). This stems from the practice of traditionally itinerant ethnic groups, such as the Romani and Irish Travellers, to periodically during the year set up a transient community. From the late 1970s onward there was also a growth in New Age travelers culture; these groups espoused alternative lifestyles combined with a Do-It-Yourself punk ethic. The latter were a commonplace phenomenon in Germany, [18] giving rise to expressions such as Wagenburg, Wagendorf, and Bauwagenplatz ("wagon fort", "trailer village" and "construction trailer site" respectively).

Either rejected from or refusing to seek entrance in municipally authorised halting sites, groups of families practising a nomadic lifestyle would trespass in order to camp on land belonging to local communities. These illegal encampments are often resented by local people, owing to their lack of sewage and waste disposal capacity, and the fact that such encampments are often difficult to remove under human rights legislation. [19] The use of land without permission is also illegal, which leads to such groups being moved on by the police or councils. [20]

Authorised caravan parks

In Germany, the Netherlands and some other European countries, local law allows for normal camping at RV parks for a short time and seasonal camping for holidaymakers, and also long-time camping (for years) with hardly movable travel trailers. Sometimes these inhabitants also cultivate a garden. Some cities allow a long-time camping lot to be the regular address registered with the authorities; others do not. Many of mobile home plots are offered by RV parks that allow for all sorts of camping and offer extra plots for mobile homes (static caravans).The cost for such a plot tends to be between €400 and €1.500 a year, depending on the location and facilities.

In France, living in a trailer or mobile home for more than three months is prohibited by law, even if the resident owns the land; however, building requirements and permissions for self building of recreational solid (static) country cottages are more relaxed in France if one stays within a certain amount of square meters.[ citation needed ]

In the United Kingdom, "trailers" are commonly known as static caravans, and are generally used for one of two purposes: firstly as holiday homes, designed for short-term living; and secondly as retirement homes for the elderly, designed for long-term occupancy. Both types of trailers usually enjoy good amenities and are surrounded by highly manicured gardens.[ citation needed ]

In Australia, there is generally no differentiation between a trailer park and an RV park. The term "caravan park" is used to refer to both.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campsite</span> Place used for overnight stay in the outdoors

Campsite, campground, and camping pitch are all related terms regarding a place used for camping. The usage differs between British English and American English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recreational vehicle</span> Types of vehicles

A recreational vehicle, often abbreviated as RV, is a motor vehicle or trailer that includes living quarters designed for accommodation. Types of RVs include motorhomes, campervans, coaches, caravans, fifth-wheel trailers, popup campers, and truck campers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caravan (trailer)</span> Type of vehicle

A caravan, travel trailer, camper, tourer or camper trailer is a trailer towed behind a road vehicle to provide a place to sleep which is more comfortable and protected than a tent. It provides the means for people to have their own home on a journey or a vacation, without relying on a motel or hotel, and enables them to stay in places where none is available. However, in some countries campers are restricted to designated sites for which fees are payable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trailer trash</span> Derogatory term for mobile home dwellers

Trailer trash is a derogatory North American English term for poor people living in a trailer or a run-down mobile home in a bad neighborhood. It is particularly used to denigrate white people living in such circumstances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile home</span> Prefabricated structure attached to a chassis

A mobile home is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site. Used as permanent homes, or for holiday or temporary accommodation, they are often left permanently or semi-permanently in one place, but can be moved, and may be required to move from time to time for legal reasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modular building</span> Prefabricated building or house that consists of repeated sections

A modular building is a prefabricated building that consists of repeated sections called modules. Modularity involves constructing sections away from the building site, then delivering them to the intended site. Installation of the prefabricated sections is completed on site. Prefabricated sections are sometimes placed using a crane. The modules can be placed side-by-side, end-to-end, or stacked, allowing for a variety of configurations and styles. After placement, the modules are joined together using inter-module connections, also known as inter-connections. The inter-connections tie the individual modules together to form the overall building structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tent city</span> Temporary housing facility

A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorhome</span> Type of vehicle

A motorhome is a type of self-propelled recreational vehicle (RV) which is as the name suggests, like a home on wheels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RV park</span> Place where people with recreational vehicles can stay

A recreational vehicle park or caravan park is a place where people with recreational vehicles can stay overnight, or longer, in allotted spaces known as "sites" or "campsites". They are also referred to as campgrounds, though a true campground also provides facilities for tent camping; many facilities calling themselves "RV parks" also offer tent camping or cabins with limited facilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manufactured housing</span> Type of prefabricated housing

Manufactured housing is a type of prefabricated housing that is largely assembled in factories and then transported to sites of use. The definition of the term in the United States is regulated by federal law : "Manufactured homes are built as dwelling units of at least 320 square feet (30 m2) in size with a permanent chassis to assure the initial and continued transportability of the home." The requirement to have a wheeled chassis permanently attached differentiates "manufactured housing" from other types of prefabricated homes, such as modular homes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Airstream</span> American brand of caravan

Airstream is an American brand of travel trailer easily recognized by the distinctive shape of its rounded and polished aluminum coachwork. This body shape dates back to the 1930s and is based on the Bowlus Road Chief, an earlier model of the all-aluminum travel trailer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dale Farm</span> Human settlement in England

Dale Farm is a plot of land situated on Oak Lane in Crays Hill, Essex, United Kingdom. Until October 2011, it was the site of one of the largest Traveller concentrations in the UK, at its height housing over 1,000 people, along with the adjacent Oak Lane site. Although Basildon District Council had granted permission for the site to be used by a small number of Traveller families, no planning permission was given for the expansion of the site into land located within the Green Belt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FEMA trailer</span> Temporary manufactured housing assigned to the victims of natural disaster

The term FEMA trailer, or FEMA travel trailer, is the name commonly given by the United States government to forms of temporary manufactured housing assigned to the victims of natural disaster by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Such trailers are intended to provide intermediate term shelter, functioning longer than tents which are often used for short-term shelter immediately following a disaster. FEMA trailers serve a similar function to the "earthquake shacks" erected to provide interim housing after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiny-house movement</span> Architectural movement advocating smaller living spaces

The tiny-house movement is an architectural and social movement promoting the reduction and simplification of living spaces. Tiny homes have been promoted as offering lower-cost and sometimes eco-friendly features within the housing market, and they have also been promoted a housing option for homeless individuals. However, the lack of clearly defined features and legality in many cases can cause issues for ownership, including being more expensive for the amount area, vulnerability to natural disaster, lack of storage, difficulty hosting, smaller or lacking traditional home appliances, and legal and or zoning issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Halting site</span> Types of populated places used by Irish Travellers

A halting site is purpose-built residential accommodation for Travellers provided by a local municipal authority. The halting site has an individual bay for each family unit with a full range of services provided in a small structure on each bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony</span> Homeless encampment in Miami, Florida

The Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony was an encampment of banished, registered sex offenders who were living beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway—a highway connecting Miami, Florida to Miami Beach, Florida, United States—from 2006 to April 2010. The colony was created by a lobbyist named Ron Book, who wrote ordinances in several different Miami-Dade County cities to restrict convicted sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet (760 m) of schools, parks, bus stops, or homeless shelters. Since Book was also head of the Miami Homeless Trust, he was also in charge of finding housing for the released sexual offenders. Under these ordinances, the only areas where sex offenders could legally reside within Miami-Dade County were the Miami Airport and the Florida Everglades. Miami-Dade laws are significantly stricter than State of Florida laws on residency restrictions for sex offenders. Florida state law required that no sex offender could live within 1,000 feet (300 m) from "where children gather". Under that requirement, housing was possible; however, because of Book's lobbying, the Dade County Commission increased that number to 2,500 feet (760 m), thereby banishing hundreds of local citizens who then began gathering under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Jungle (Seattle)</span> Encampment in Seattle

The Jungle, officially known as the East Duwamish Greenbelt, is a greenbelt on the western slope of Beacon Hill in Seattle, Washington that is known for its homeless encampments and crime. The Jungle consists of 150 acres (61 ha) underneath and along an elevated section of Interstate 5 between South Dearborn Street and South Lucile Street. An assessment counted 201 tents and estimate of more than 400 people in the area prior to a shooting on January 26, 2016, that increased scrutiny and a sweep of the greenspace. The area continues to be used by the homeless as of 2024.

We Heart Seattle (WHS), formerly We Heart Downtown Seattle and incorporated as I Heart Downtown Seattle in October 2020, is a volunteer organization responding to trash and homelessness in Seattle. Its founder and executive director is Andrea Suarez, a resident of Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. The group organizes volunteer trash cleanups in public parks in which homeless people have established camps, primarily through a public Facebook group and Facebook events. The group had a short-lived affiliate, We Heart Portland, which performed similar work in Portland, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 Minneapolis park encampments</span> Homeless encampments in city parks

The U.S. city of Minneapolis featured officially and unofficially designated camp sites in city parks for people experiencing homelessness that operated from June 10, 2020, to January 7, 2021. The emergence of encampments on public property in Minneapolis was the result of pervasive homelessness, mitigations measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota, local unrest after the murder of George Floyd, and local policies that permitted encampments. At its peak in the summer of 2020, there were thousands of people camping at dozens of park sites across the city. Many of the encampment residents came from outside of Minneapolis to live in the parks. By the end of the permit experiment, four people had died in the city's park encampments, including the city's first homicide victim of 2021, who was stabbed to death inside a tent at Minnehaha Park on January 3, 2021.

References

  1. ↑ Gray, Nolan (August 12, 2016). "Reclaiming "Redneck" Urbanism: What Urban Planners can Learn from Trailer Parks". Strong Towns. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  2. 1 2 Neate, Rupert (May 3, 2015). "America's trailer parks: the residents may be poor but the owners are getting rich". The Guardian . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Foroohar, Rana (February 7, 2020). "Why big investors are buying up American trailer parks". Financial Times . Archived from the original on 2022-12-10. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  4. ↑ Kirk, Mimi (October 25, 2017). "How Mobile Homes Hinder the American Dream". Bloomberg News . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  5. ↑ Cohen, Adam (January 20, 1997). "WILL SHE HAVE HER DAY IN COURT ?". Time . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  6. ↑ Madan, Monique O. (September 10, 2017). "Hurricane Irma rips roofs from mobile homes". Miami Herald . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  7. ↑ Paquette, Danielle (September 12, 2017). "Florida has 828,000 mobile homes. Less than a third were built to survive a hurricane". The Washington Post . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  8. ↑ Treaster, Joseph B.; Fountain, Henry (September 14, 2017). "Considered Vulnerable, Mobile Homes Are Battered but Largely Intact". The New York Times . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  9. ↑ Dewan, Shaila (July 12, 2007). "Road to New Life After Katrina Is Closed to Many". The New York Times . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  10. ↑ Class and News. Rowman & Littlefield. 2004. pp. 213–214. ISBN   978-0-7425-2713-3 . Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  11. ↑ Aaron, Nina Renata (March 13, 2018). "Downwardly mobile: how trailer living became an inescapable marker of class". Timeline. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  12. ↑ "Municipal Building Meeting Room Minutes" (PDF). Select Board. Town of Dover-Foxcroft. April 11, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Particle or Wave: On Esther Sullivan's "Manufactured Insecurity"". Cleveland Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-11-23.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Whoriskey, Peter (February 14, 2019). "A billion-dollar empire made of mobile homes". Washington Post . Retrieved February 14, 2019.
  15. ↑ Reager, Catherine (2020-06-02). "Big investor Carlyle pays $230M for four older Mesa mobile home parks". The Arizona Republic .
  16. ↑ Waddell, Benjamin (March 21, 2022). "Trailer Park Residents Hope to Buy the Land Beneath Them". Four Points Press. Retrieved July 28, 2022.
  17. ↑ Gerlach, Jeremy T. (Feb 4, 2015). "Last families moving out of Mission Reach trailer park". San Antonio Express-News .
  18. ↑ Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. Taylor & Francis. 1997. p. 289. ISBN   978-0-4151-4920-4 . Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Law on Gypsies, Travellers and Unauthorised Encampments". Local Solicitors. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
  20. ↑ O’Faolain, Aodhan (October 3, 2019). "Traveller couples given 24 hours to move away from vicinity of illegal halting site". Irish Examiner . Retrieved February 18, 2021.

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