Stay Informed!

Single Mother Owns Home After Years of Public Housing

Louisa Padilla – a single mother of three kids – has never been so grateful than she was after buying her first house – a manufactured home in Oakland, California.

“We are blessed and forever happy now,” she said.

Louisa was unfamiliar with and a little skeptical about manufactured homes, which are built in a factory on a metal frame, but seeing the house alleviated all of her concerns. It looked like any other house, with a peaked roof and a generous porch overlooking the front lawn.

“It’s just like a regular house. It is a regular house,” she said.

Louisa had never owned a home before. Growing up, she shared one room with three brothers in a housing project. Before buying their home, Louisa used Section 8 vouchers – a federally funded housing subsidy program – to rent a home.

“This is a real investment,” she said. “Instead of just paying rent, I feel like the money is coming right back to me because I’ll be able to pass this house down to my kids.”

As a manufactured homeowner, Louisa joined the almost 17 million Americans who find that a manufactured home is affordable— often their only affordable option. Because they derive from “trailers,” manufactured homes face negative stereotypes; however, those made after 1976 are subject to a strict federal building code and can provide safe, sound and attractive housing in rural, urban and suburban neighborhoods.

Not only do manufactured homes face unfair negative stereotypes, but their homeowners face unfair problems. Manufactured homebuyers can rarely get affordable, long-term mortgage loans and most – unlike Louisa – don’t own the land underneath their homes, resulting in the possibility of being evicted with little to no notice.

CFED works with the Ford Foundation and local partners like Oakland Community Housing, Inc. to improve the way manufactured housing is financed and developed so that more people like Louisa can gain economic security through homeownership.