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Solving Elders' Manufactured Home Problems: Tools, Resources, Legal Approaches

Wednesday, April 27th from 2:00 - 3:00 PM EST

The National Consumer Law Center and CFED’s Innovations in Manufactured Homes initiative co-sponsored a webinar to share information about legal approaches, tools and resources for dealing with the issues faced by elders living in manufactured homes. Panelists provided an overview of issues facing elders who live in manufactured homes and presented remedies and resources to solve those problems.

Topics included:

• Why are manufactured homes important for elders?
• What resources can AARP provide to help elders with manufactured home issues?
• What can be done when the elder's manufactured home community is for sale?
• What laws and state agencies can help with warranty and set-up problems with manufactured homes?
• What protections exist for an elder who needs to sell a home in a manufactured home community?
• What laws protect free speech and the right of assembly for residents of manufactured home communities?
• How can residents be protected from unjustified eviction from manufactured home communities?
• How can manufactured home owner associations help?

This webinar was designed to be particularly useful to senior legal services programs, senior hotlines, senior advocates and pro bono attorneys for seniors. It focused on low-cost solutions, including state and federal offices that can resolve manufactured home problems and state and national organizations that offer help. The panel featured the following presenters:

• Dr. Rodney Harrell, Senior Strategic Policy Advisor at AARP
• Carolyn Carter, Deputy Director of Advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center
• Ishbel Dickens, Executive Director of the Manufactured Home Owners Association of America

Additional sponsorship for this webinar was provided by a grant from the Administration on Aging. This webinar was part of a series of National Elder Rights Training Project webinars for the National Legal Resource Center.

Watch the Recorded Webinar

To view the recorded webinar, click here. For the power point slides, click here.

About the Manufactured Housing Webinar Series

Regardless of the economic landscape, affordable housing persists as a challenge in many communities across the country. Affordable housing developers, advocates, stakeholders and public officials need a comprehensive toolbox of affordable housing options that meet the full continuum of affordable housing needs in their community. Manufactured housing is a high-quality, affordable choice for many homeowners.

The goal of the Manufactured Housing Webinar Series is to provide practical information on the opportunities of manufactured housing as an affordable housing strategy. The series focuses on the intersection of building a local and state policy landscape that supports owners of manufactured housing and highlights case studies that have successfully leveraged strong policies to help homeowners build assets. Those interested in promoting quality, affordable housing options in their community should plan on attending. Topics in the Manufactured Housing Webinar Series rely heavily on the content of the Manufactured Housing Toolkit, available on the Manufactured Housing Advocacy Center. This webinar in particular will draw some content from the Conventional Mortgage Financing Resource Guide in the Toolkit. This guide lays out the different methods of titling manufactured housing and the implications for home financing; discusses manufactured housing finance; outlines challenges in accessing conventional mortgage financing for manufactured housing; and offers policy recommendations for increasing access to conventional mortgage financing for manufactured housing.

For more information on the Manufactured Housing Webinar Series, visit www.cfed.org/knowledge_center/events/.