Goin' mobile

So far I've posted stories from Delaware, Florida, California, Utah and Arizona about the powerlessness of manufactured-home owners who do not own the land under their not-really-mobile mobile homes.

Add Idaho to the list:

The president of Boise State University says the threat to mobile home living as an affordable low-cost housing alternative in the region is alarming.

The school and city researchers released earlier this week a study that found low-income residents being forced from manufactured homes due to a demand for vacant property to make way for new development.

The study found Boise had 50 mobile home parks with 2,076 manufactured homes being occupied by 5,412 people.

Of those residents, half are senior citizens living on $20,000 a year. Most of the residents are female and nearly half have chronic medical conditions.

The study found that about 1,300 mobile-home households have been forced to move since 2001.

You can read more about the Boise State Study, "Mobile Home Living in Boise: It's Uncertain Future and Alarming Decline," from BSU's press release, or download the entire study here.

Again, the deal with manufactured housing/mobile homes/trailer parks is this: If you own the home and the land it sits on, it appreciates in value much like any other home. If you own the home but not the land it sits on, it depreciates, like an automobile, and you'll be unlikely to be able to sell it or move it for a reasonable price should the land rent become prohibitively expensive.

The demographics of Boise's trailer parks echo the general shape of the manufactured housing population we've seen in the other states: low-income, fixed-income, elderly, female. The BSU study found that about two-thirds of these manufactured-home owners were paying rent on the land beneath their homes. About half of them were living on around $20,000 a year, while the typical cost for moving a home to a new location would be about $10,000. The implications of the arithmetic there aren't difficult to figure out.

The BSU study is pretty thin when it comes to recommendations. The report suggests, for example, that the city of Boise "publish a pamphlet that warns homebuyers about the danger of owning a house on leased land and another that informs mobile home residents of their legal rights." That first pamphlet seems a bit belated, the second one would be depressingly short.

The most promising recommendation, in my view, is this one:

Encourage housing cooperatives by working with private lenders and homeowner associations or by assisting nonprofits.

"Working with private lenders" is a bit vague, but the full report expands on this to explore the variety of tax-exempt financing options for "leasehold" co-ops or limited equity co-ops like those New Hampshire promotes working with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund's ROC USA program.

"ROC" there stands for "resident owned community," meaning communities where manufactured-home owners also own the land underneath them. Instead of paying rent -- which could be increased at any time, forcing them off the land and probably out of their homes -- the residents of these ROCs make payments on the loans that purchased the land they live on. ROC USA has helped 86 manufactured housing communities in New Hampshire become resident-owned, giving these homeowners the security and stability that the residents in Boise desperately lack.

It's an excellent model. It works. And the ROC USA people are eager to help other states and cities find ways to duplicate this model so that they don't end up, like Boise, with 1,300 retirees forced from their homes.

What's happening in Idaho and in Utah, Delaware, California, Florida and Arizona is likely also happening in many other states. And it shouldn't be happening. Poor old people with few options shouldn't be forced out of their homes. The ROC USA approach to helping them purchase the land beneath their feet doesn't involve government mandates or wealth-redistribution. And it doesn't involve burdensome restrictions on anyone's personal liberty beyond insisting that landowners must allow their tenants the first crack at buying the land for a fair market price. It is, after all, a model developed in the "live free or die" state.

In much of rural America, manufactured housing fills the same affordable housing niche that apartments do in urban areas. Helping the residents of manufactured housing communities achieve a bit more security and stability, it seems to me, would be a good way of winning votes in rural areas.

The Chicago Tribune reports on what attempts to woo rural voters typically means. "Ohio governor reaches out to rural voters," the headline reads. Read the article, though, and you'll see that the substance of this "reaching out" involves: A) Gov. Strickland speaking at county fairgrounds; B) Gov. Strickland telling stories about his youth on a farm; C) Gov. Strickland going hunting; and D) Gov. Strickland going hunting some more. Lots of sizzle, no actual steak.

Strickland's story about when "a fire leveled his boyhood home" and his family lived "for a while in a converted chicken coop" may well earn him some sympathy points with rural voters. But those voters who are struggling with higher rents on the land beneath their homes -- and who are therefore fearing that they may themselves soon be living in converted chicken coops -- might find a more compelling reason to vote for the man if he helped them through something like ROC USA.

Comments

[Stacia]

I think a big part of the problem with the mobile home issue is that there's such a stereotype against those who live in a mobile home. It's not just that residents of mobile home communities are lower-income, it's that they're considered stupid for living in that type of home. When my husband and I were forced to live in a mobile home just to have a decent place that accepted pets (2 family cats prevented us from renting a house or even a decent apartment for years) we were treated terribly by people who thought anyone who lived in a trailer was "trash". The Tenant's Association in town wouldn't help us with issues even though we were renters, the (Kansas) state laws about rental trailers differ significantly from the rental apartment laws, and I was even turned down for a job interview when an HR person saw I lived in a trailer park.

The ROC USA plan sounds good, but frankly, most companies that own mobile home communities want to own the land themselves, because that's what appreciates in value. I can't imagine any company willingly selling the land to individuals. I'm cynical enough to think that it will be extremely difficult for ROC USA to acquire enough land to help in a significant way.

(First time poster, by the way. I started reading a few weeks ago when a friend recommended the Gay Hatin' Gospel series, which I've found extremely informative.)

[mcc]

So, I am confused. Elsewhere I'm hearing all these stories about housing prices dropping precipitously, and foreclosures happening all over the place and driving houses onto the market. Meanwhile here I'm hearing stories about rent on land going up, and "manufactured housing" residents being driven off by demand for that land for new development. How do I reconcile these two things?

[Duane]

Welcome to Fred's Threads, Stacia!

(I'm handling greeting duties while Jeff takes a break.)

[Mabus]

It sometimes seems to me that there is something more pernicious underlying this difficulty with mobile homes, and that something is the concept of rent itself--the idea that one can pay and pay and pay for something, perhaps for one's entire life, without obtaining a stake in it, even if one should end up paying its market value several times over. Perhaps there should be no rent that is not rent-to-own--and more than that, that if one has paid money on a property and it goes to someone else, one deserves a proportional share in the purchase money.

Apologies if I suddenly do not sound conservative at all, but like some naive utopian.

[Linkmeister]

In Hawai'i the situation is called leasehold: discussion here. Although here it's condos and apartments (no mobile home parks I know of, at least on Oahu), it's the same principle. The tenant signs a lease for the use of the land. Up until 10-15 years ago most land on Oahu was leasehold, but then the (typically) 30-year leases began to run out, and the big estates which owned the land were a) forced to offer householders the land their homes were on by the legislature and b) in most cases pleased to do so, because they made fortunes off said sales and could invest the cash gained in much more liquid assets.

[clew]

Dunno, mabus. The corporation I work for rents my services, and I don't want them to declare that they have a permanent stake in me. (Although, between work-for-hire and abuse of NDAs, they may try.)

I think the problem with the trailer parks is not that rent exists, it's that there's no option cheaper than renting even for people who are not planning to move, ever.

[Praline]

From a British point of view, one thing that leaps out at me is the fact that nearly half the people in these mobile homes have chronic medical conditions. I can't help wondering whether, if they didn't have to spend all their money on medicine, they might have more money to spend on other necessaries such as a roof over their heads.

Really, you guys need a national health service but bad. I swear, if you grow up with one, it looks as much of a human right as the right to a court-appointed lawyer if you get arrested: legal protection and lifesaving medical care are both things that no civilised society should deny its impoverished citizens. If anything, denying medical care can be worse: a prison term is finite, but bad health is for life.

[Stacia]

Thanks for the welcome, Duane!

Praline, this is true, but I recently got accidentally embroiled in an online discussion where many Americans were insistent that taxes -- which paid for things like public education, Social Security, law enforcement, and road maintenance -- were a violation of their rights. They firmly believe that there shouldn't even be a government, let alone one that taxes its people. People should pay for their own personal law enforcement, education, etc. They don't feel our society needs or is improved by any of these government services. There's a *lot* of people like that, at least on the Internet, and I have to believe they're voting and complaining and doing what they can to prevent national health care.

This ROC USA program would make their heads explode.

[Tayi]

I used to work at a mobile home park in Oregon. I worked there for about a year; the year before I started there, the land was bought by an investment firm. They kept the mobile home park, but it was clear they were planning to offload it within a few years because they wouldnt pay for any upgrades or even adequate maintenance on the communal facilities (a small rec room, a dock by the river, and a bathroom with showers so people could use the showers in their mobiles as storage). They will probably sell in a couple of years, when a new hospital goes in and the price of land in the area skyrockets. I wouldn't be surprised if they get the land zoned commercial, but I would be extremely surprised if the people living in the park were able to raise the money to buy it with a co-operative. Even a group of people who are living on their Social Security payments, who were sometimes unable to afford even $5-10 rent increases, aren't going to be able to borrow enough money to match a corporate buyer. Plus, when you're old, ill, forgetful and alone, organizing a co-operative that can fight the lawyers of a big firm isn't going to happen. Resident owned communities aren't a bad idea, but I'm afraid they're not adequate to protect the elderly poor.

[Cathy W]

Another factor confounding the formation of co-ops and homeowner's associations: A lot of mobile home parks, at least in my area, ban the formation of tenants' unions. One of my local papers ran a story a couple years ago about a park that evicted several tenants who were trying to form one. I don't know if that would apply to an association being formed for the purpose of buying the park, but I betcha the owners wouldn't entirely care.

I live in a mobile home park at present, in a rural township very near a good-sized city (100k people). Given the present township government, I'm not concerned about the land being sold out from under me for any purpose other than as a mobile home park - the township government is under a lot of pressure to preserve the rural character of the area, and any development they approve gets a fuss made over it.

BUT the Supreme Court ruling about eminent domain gave me the shivers; about six years ago there was a deal struck between the owner of the park and the township to allow expansion of the park in exchange for the owner paving along his frontage on a dirt road that borders the park and running in city water and sewer (available 1/2 mile away). He expanded, sold the park without ever making the promised improvements, and the new owners claimed the agreement wasn't binding on them, so we still have a dirt road and well water. The thought keeps wandering through the back of my mind that if the township decides they'd rather have 50 highly-taxed single-family homes on the plot of land instead of 200 lightly-taxed trailers, they might not be quite as opposed to development as they were the day before, and the law would back them up.

FWIW, there's a good mix of people in my neighborhood. I'm not the only young professional who found it to be the cheapest place to live in the best school district in the area, meaning a family can easily live on one good income. That's probably also why there are a lot of single parents, and a few grad students. There are quite a few elderly couples, some of whom have lived there for 30 years. Most of the people who have moved in lately have been immigrants, possibly fairly recent. And there's a lot of vacant lots and empty homes, which I ascribe to the fact that the rent gets raised 7-8% every year, but there's no investment being made in the park beyond basic maintenance of the streets.

[Geds]

Stacia: I recently got accidentally embroiled in an online discussion where many Americans were insistent that taxes -- which paid for things like public education, Social Security, law enforcement, and road maintenance -- were a violation of their rights.

What you were dealing with there weren't "Americans." They were "Libertarians." You can identify them by their extreme irrationality, aversion to anything that might require them to identify with other human beings, and massive cognitive dissonance when it comes to things like complaining about taxes whilst driving down roads paved with the very taxes they hate so much.

Stick around long enough in the comments to see Scott (who should be showing up any time now) and you'll understand. Until then you might want to read this primer over at Right Behind, the Slacktivist/L.B. Fridays spin-off site.

Huh, if Ecks and Jesu are reading this, you were right. It was a good idea to copy the story.

[cjmr]

Yeah, where is Scott? Usually he's commented by 9 a.m. EST.

[Scorpio]

Ever notice how mobile home parks are tornado magnets? Can't live in one in Kansas unless you want to be at risk. Same in any other place there are tornadoes. Hey, the tornado in Wisconsin even hit a mobile home park.

[mmack]

Yeah, where is Scott? Usually he's commented by 9 a.m. EST.

It's odd cjmr, when I read the title and first paragraph of this post, I expected Scott to be one of the first two or three posters.

Maybe his bus or train was late this morning? :^/

Commencing Scott countdown in 10, 9, 8 . . .

[Duane]

Speaking of Scott, Slacktivist.com is registered by Scott Nath. I wonder if it's the same Scott?

[Duane]

Ever notice how mobile home parks are tornado magnets?

News stories also make them seem like a hotbed of pedophilia. ("Hotbed of pedophilia" could spawn a discussion all of it's own.)

[Rosina]

Ever notice how mobile home parks are tornado magnets?

Not only in America.

[cjmr]

Actually, the big tornado that came ripping up through the town where we used to live in 2001 completely missed all four trailer parks in town. It missed our place by about 1/4 mile.

[ModularHomeFinder]

Very interesting article. Thanks for the post. I look forward to your future work.

[Geds]

Hey, relentlessly specific, on-target comment spam.

I think that's three shots in the comment spam drinking game. Am I right?

[Glenn Bell]

Hello again my learned friends, Glenn Bell president of neighborhood friends chiming in again. You might know that I run an organization that works on behalf of mobile home owners throughout state California. We also work on the national level. Last week this story came to my desk, and I began an investigation. This particular park happens to be one of the most atrocious I’ve ever seen, and I have seen the worst of the worst. Within ½ hour of seeing this park I was able to ascertain legal counsel for these people. Get the city of Los Angeles involved: And the state of California’s health and safety department. This particular mobile home park is going to be a major story.

Of the 28 units in this park the average income is approximately $18,000.00 per annum. Over 60 percent of the people in this community are disabled. When they were faced with the egregious actions of the park owner they approached their local representatives in Los Angeles, a city councilman. The city councilman in this instance is Tony Cardenas, he has the sixth district. In the last 60 days we have found his organization involved in 2 illegal park closures. In this particular instance his staff planning person, a young lady by the name of Soto sponsored meeting with the park owner, the homeowners, expressing to the homeowners that the park owner was following all of the laws. The city council district had not even bothered to look at the park. The living conditions in this park are unbelievable, is not only the dangerous it’s deadly. I’ve also been dealing with the state on this particular park, and have come to find out that there is no laws equal to that of a criminal slum lord in a city. So in essence a mobile home park owner can break any law he wants to in a mobile home park in the state California, and never have criminal prosecution. And to give you an idea of how bad the health and safety issues are in this particular park, just the electrical issue pertaining to the master meter’s exposed wires, just out casual brush against these wires would not only kill that person, it would melt the flesh off of the bone on any human being. These wires are exposed in the only play area for children in this park. There are over a dozen children in this park.

The homeowners over the years have tried to fix some of these problems that have been evicted on the grounds of damaging park property. These are the laws that these people have to live with. The human beings living in mobile home Parks today are the great unwashed. We as a society need to find in much more humane way of dealing with our poor our weak and are fragile. Yes there will be a lawsuit; will it fix all of year’s these people had to live under the circumstances? I doubt it. Will this park owner get what he deserves? I don’t think so. He needs to go to prison.

Wouldn’t you want that if it was sure grandchild at risk?
This was a report I gave the attorney, you decide.

Report on Woodley Trailer Park.
7936 Woodley Avenue ,Van Nuys California

Sue, this park is the worst park I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot, comparing it to Duroville.
The first thing you see in this park is a security gate that has had its motor removed a long time ago. I was accompanied by a member of our staff. He videotaped the whole experience; I have a copy for you.

This park has more exposed live open junction box’s; I counted at least fifteen in the whole park. Even the master meter in the park is wide open and has not had its metal cover for many years. The inner-workings of the master meter is roughly 18in. off the ground, and in the only playing area available for the children in the park. There is enough electricity in this master meter, exposed to the world, that a casual brush would kill anybody. I saw a number of breaker boxes that are open and exposed that if touched would result in death as well. I observed a single meter that had been over grown by a palm tree. The meter itself is now an integral part of the tree. Needless to say this park is a death trap.

There used to be a rec-center in the park, the previous owner decided to turn it into an apartment illegally. About a month and a half ago it suffered a suspicious fire, according to the firemen on site. The owner never bothered to board up the fire damaged building. He just left it open for the children to play in he has recently hired laborers to come and throw all the debris out into a pile, right outside the door and window. It has been there for at least six weeks, and when we arrived at this park the children were playing in that debris pile. Previously, the same building also housed the park laundromat. Without notice or reason the owner decided to remove the all of the washers and dryers and sell them. So the park no longer has a laundry facility. Many of the homes in the park are long term RV’s. Most of them have been there many years and are dependent on the facilities.

The park owner is obviously participating in illegal and intimidating tactics. Recently, he told his manager not to include the electric bill to a number of the rent statements, and then he compiled bills from months passed, and gave the bill to the homeowners knowing that they could not pay it, at the same time he served them a three day notice to pay or quit. He has successfully evicted at least four of the people there. The homeowners tell me that they have access to these people. Apparently, the owner was standing behind the fence while we were talking with the homeowners. He states that he recorded us; this doesn’t bother me since it is absolutely legal for homeowners to gather.

The sewer system, has open and exposed sewage throughout the park. In one area I observed, a young Dog in a makeshift dog run. In this dog run there was exposed electrical wires and pooling human fecal matter. This is inhumane in the most extreme measure.

As it pertains to the drinking water, a number of the home’s drinking water is fed by a garden hose. I’m sure if we had the drinking water analyzed we would all be amazed at what is in it.

It has been noted that the owner of the park is working with the planning department of Tony Cardenas city council district. This is the same woman who went up against us at Starlight Park. She does not know the law and sits in the pocket of the park owner. Evidently, there was a neighborhood council meeting where she explained to the homeowners that the park owner was following all of the laws. A Feild Rep., of the sixth district was also at the Park meeting. I believe that she wants to protect the homeowners. However she is a neophyte, There has been no real intention of the city council of Los Angeles to learn the laws that protect the homeowners.

This will probably be the easiest failure to maintain case you’ve ever seen. There is no attorney who can look at this videotape and defend anything. I have already forwarded the stills to you, and I will overnight the video on DVD to you. I believe even you will be amazed.

Your friend
Glenn Bell
President
Neighborhood Friends
818 890 1113

[Glenn Bell]

Sorry for being so long winded. Glenn

[Chris_C]

So, I am confused. Elsewhere I'm hearing all these stories about housing prices dropping precipitously, and foreclosures happening all over the place and driving houses onto the market. Meanwhile here I'm hearing stories about rent on land going up, and "manufactured housing" residents being driven off by demand for that land for new development. How do I reconcile these two things?

Posted by: mcc

The mortgage industry built a house of cards with their finances and it just collapsed, scaring investors off. There's very little money (compared to recent years) available to lend for new mortgages, and what's available comes with higher rates. If you're paying more interest you have to pay less principle, so you have to pay less for a house driving the prices down.

The increase in foreclosures are on property with high-risk mortgages, the very losses that have scared off the investors. It's going to be a very good year for buying a house if you don't have one to sell, and you have the cash to buy it outright.

At the same time, rents go up thanks to a trickle-down from the Federal tax cuts a few years ago. The Federal gov't cut payments to the states, who cut payments to the cities and counties, who made up the difference by raising property taxes. Helped in part by the appraised value of your house going through the roof becuase semi-qualified buyers had access to cheap mortgages and bought houses in your neighborhood at unsustainable prices.

This is the first year out of the last eight that my insurance company has admitted that I don't need to expand my homeowners policy as my house isn't worth what it was last year.

[Stan Taylor]

mcc asked: So, I am confused. Elsewhere I'm hearing all these stories about housing prices dropping precipitously, and foreclosures happening all over the place and driving houses onto the market. Meanwhile here I'm hearing stories about rent on land going up, and "manufactured housing" residents being driven off by demand for that land for new development. How do I reconcile these two things?

The points that Chris_C makes are valid, but I don't see how they address this question outright. As a resident of a booming suburb (Pflugerville, northeast of Austin), here's my answer, based on what I've seen: trailer parks are often built on inexpensive, often out-of-the-way, land. As urban and suburban areas grow, this land becomes more desirable, thus the value of the land increases significantly.

The subdivision that I live in was located out in the middle of nowhere for 10 years. Now, it's the middle of everywhere, as there's a new expressway running right up to it. The former farm fields are sprouting new single-family homes faster than they grew corn and cotton before.

We had a trailer park near us that was sold and converted to a subdivision about two years ago. The sale and conversion of that land required a city zoning change, so we had a say in it. I went along with the general attitude that the conversion of the trailer park to single-family homes was better all around for the neighborhood. If I'd known then the points that Fred raises, I probably would not have jumped on that bandwagon so readily.

[Richard Hershberger]

On the question of falling home prices and rising land rents, another thing to consider is that the loan industry debacle is recent and likely to be short lived. The long term issue is sprawl, where the cheap rural land becomes somewhat less cheap exurban land, gradually working its way until it is indistinguishable from north Jersey. The home loan debacle is a mere blip in that trend.

[Jeff]

A lot of mobile home parks, at least in my area, ban the formation of tenants' unions. One of my local papers ran a story a couple years ago about a park that evicted several tenants who were trying to form one.

That would seem to violate the 1st Amendment Freedom of Assembly clause, wouldn't it? Have the tenants sued in Federal Court for the right to form a union?

[zzyzx]

"That would seem to violate the 1st Amendment Freedom of Assembly clause, wouldn't it? Have the tenants sued in Federal Court for the right to form a union?"

Unfortunately, that only applies to public land. This is why the irony of Libertopia is that we'd have so much less freedom than we do under our current system.

[Cathy]

Jeff, keep in mind that a lot of the people who live in mobile home parks do so essentially out of economic necessity. Lawyers cost money, and by way of making Fred's point, the tenants of a mobile home park aren't typically the sort of people whose rights the public gets all worked up about. The issue of "How come they get taxed on their house like it was a trailer when it's just like my house, but on wheels?" got a lot more media play than that one story about the evictions, very little of it sympathetic.

[Jenny Islander]

It doesn't help that the pop-culture cliche about mobile home owners is that they are stupid, lazy, dirty, self-indulgent and badly dressed backyard dog breeders who are addicted to at least three different drugs, lie to get government benefits, believe late-night ads, and like to shoot their TVs when they don't like what Jerry Springer just said.

Because, you know, if you were a human being worth giving a damn about you would be middle-class and own a house.

*grew up in double-wides*

[Alecto]

*delurks* A couple of streets down from my family's beach house (Outer Banks, NC), there's a trailer/mobile home park. It looks like it's mostly for campers, but given the state of the local economy, it's entirely possible that it has more permanent residents. Even so, it's still a cheaper way to vacation here, instead of renting one of the high-to-exorbitantly-high-priced houses. I now feel guilty for agreeing with my father that it was an eyesore. *has moment of personal growth*

[Jeff]

Jeff, keep in mind that a lot of the people who live in mobile home parks do so essentially out of economic necessity.

I'm well aware of that. A friend of my mom's has post-polio syndrome (see here and here), but is being forced out of unit anyway. I was thinking that a group like Neighborhood Friends or Post-Polio Health International might be able to fund a lawsuit.

Bus riders tend to be fairly low-income and not have much clout individually. But here in LA, they've banded together to form a "Bus-Rider's Union", which has been VERY effective in keeping rates low.

[Ecks]

Sorry for the info dump, but here's a newsletter about the most recent poverty stats in the US from Neil Wollman, Senior Fellow at the Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility, Bentley College. Full of interesting info.

LAST DECADE SEES CLOSING POVERTY GAP BETWEEN
MINORITIES AND WHITES, YOUNG AND OLD, WOMEN AND MEN

LARGE INCOME GAP BETWEEN POOR AND RICH PERSISTS


NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. (November 15, 2007) Several statistically significant trends emerged in a study of U.S. Census data by researchers at Indiana's Manchester College and Massachusetts's Bentley College. Poverty rates and income levels were examined from 1995-2006 for several groups in the U.S. population.

As recently reported by the Census Bureau, the overall poverty rate continues to decrease as it has generally done since 1995. Comparisons of several demographic and income level groups, however, reveal mixed trends. The disparity in poverty rates between whites and other racial-ethnic groups decreased seven of the last eleven years, dropping 23 percent overall since 1995. This disparity increased from 2004 to 2005 but the decreasing trend once again resumed in 2006 (with whites still being better off overall). The poverty disparity between adults and children also decreased seven of those same eleven years, dropping 11 percent overall, but increased slightly in 2006 from 2005 (with adults continuously better off overall). After narrowing each year since 1997, the gender-based poverty gap showed a large increase in 2005, widening to a level last seen in 2000. In 2006, however, the gap once again narrowed to a level similar to that seen in 2001. Though the gap closed seven of eleven years, the increase of 2005 resulted in there being no overall improvement since 1995 (with men still being better off overall).

Focusing on the most quickly narrowing gap, that for race, reveals that the effect is due principally to minority groups dropping in poverty rate, with white poverty remaining relatively stable (an 8.2% rate for whites in 2006 versus 8.5% in 1995, with only mild fluctuations during that period, from 7.4% to 8.6%). During this same time period the Black poverty rate dropped from 29.3% to 24.2%; Hispanics from 30.2% to 20.6%; and Asians/Pacific Islanders from 14.6% to 10.1%. Generally speaking, minority groups experienced moderate to strong declines in poverty in the late 1990's followed by small increases in the new century, including the slight improvement from 2005 to 2006.

However, there is bad news on another front. Inequality in income between the richest and the poorest households increased seven of eleven years reaching a modern-day high in 2005. In 2006, the 95th percentile income is 14.5 times higher than income at the 10th percentile. This measure of inequality is 12 percent higher than in 1995. According to Caitlin Haynes, a student member of the research team, "Although these rates indicate an improvement from the previous year, the income gap in 2005 was the widest observed since the Census Bureau began publishing such data in 1967. The measure of inequality was 29 percent higher in 2005 than first observed in 1967. It now stands at 27 percent higher in 2006 than in 1967."

The researchers noted that the growing rich-poor gap has important implications for U.S. society. "Do we really want a divided society where people live in different neighborhoods, have different friends, and send their children to separate schools, depending on how much money their family has? Because these are the consequences of high income inequality," said researcher Bradley Yoder, Professor of Sociology and Social Work.

Even the good news of the narrowing poverty gaps based on race and age is tempered by a closer look at the data. Non-whites are still 2.5 times more likely to live in poverty than whites, comparable to 2004. Similarly, despite the downward 1995-2006 trend in poverty disparity between adults and children (18 and over versus under 18 years old), in 2006 children were still 1.6 times more likely to be poor than adults (with no change from 2005). The poverty rate for those under 18 was 17.4 percent, while the rate for adults was 10.6 percent. Even more problematic is the poverty rate of children in minority households, 33.0 percent for Black households and 26.9 percent in Hispanic households, compared to the overall childhood rate of 17.4.

The poverty gap based on gender once again declined in 2006, returning to a downward trend despite an increase in 2005. 13.6 percent of women and girls were in poverty in 2006, compared with 11 percent of males. Females are now 23 percent more likely to be in poverty than males (down from 27 percent in 2005). For females living in Black and Hispanic households the poverty rates are considerably higher, 26.2 and 22.6 percent respectively, compared to 13.6 percent overall.

"There is some hope for the future as some demographic gaps generally narrowed over the decade, but the gaps are still there," says lead researcher Neil Wollman, Senior Fellow of the Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility at Bentley College. "These poverty gaps are not good for a society that holds equality as one of its important values. Happiness is affected by the ways our values play out in the world and how we feel that we stack up next to our fellow citizens."

These figures are from the National Index of Violence and Harm, constructed to measure trends in the levels of violence and harm to individuals in the United States. The index is calculated yearly by professors and students at Manchester College in Indiana and Bentley College in Massachusetts, by comparing current figures to the baseline year of 1995. Two different scales and nineteen variables are included. Personal violence and harm includes violence against others and against oneself, such as sexual assault and deaths from drug overdose. Societal violence and harm is measured by such factors as lack of health insurance, air pollution, and occupational injuries. Complete details can be found at http://www.manchester.edu/links/violenceindex/

The National Index of Violence and Harm is a project of the Manchester College Peace Studies Institute and the Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility. The researchers are Neil Wollman (primary contact), Ph.D., Senior Fellow of the Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility (260.568.0116, nwollman@bentley.edu); Bradley L. Yoder, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Social Work (260.982.5366, blyoder@manchester.edu); James P. Brumbaugh-Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mathematics (260.982.5011, jpbrumbaugh-smith@manchester.edu); and Caitlin Haynes, Manchester College student (chaynes@manchester.edu).

IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE PERIODIC UPDATES ON THE NATIONAL INDEX OF VIOLENCE AND HARM, WRITE NWOLLMAN@BENTLEY.EDU, WITH "SEND NIVAH UPDATES" IN THE SUBJECT LINE.

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[Havealena]

From personal experience,I do know that when you rent a space at a privately owned RV park, you are an indentured servitude renter subject to all and any whims, personality flaws, temperment of the owner. Best motto is- You didn't see it, you didn't hear it, you weren't around it, you didn't participate. I advise to stay away from the owners and management completely and just drop your rent in the 'box' discretely when none of them are visible. Whatever you do, NEVER, ask for a receipt, NEVER call them in any emergency(they tell you to call local police),never mind them reading your mail and copying information about you from it, never complain. Whatever you do, no matter what happens outside your door, don't get involved. Especially when the owner/mgr. has an ego problem and attitude of they do-it- all(even if they are paranoid behaving all the time). Silently endure their childish ignorance or walk away in silence looking stupid, don't comment, play stupid, blind, deaf, dumb and you'll survive there. If any other tenants have criminal offenses against them and the owner says that one's FOUR DUI's(drugs, alcohol) were due to a "bad situation", but tell you to shut up, do it or you'll be thrown out! I have quickly relearned 'no-consciousing', and don't care if someone has a medical emergency for the owner can throw you out you for helping anyone when they feel it's THEIR job or THEIR mgr.s job, even if the mgr. is a felon. These trailer courts are full of drug addicts, even when owners boast about their 'big' individual efforts to drive out drugs in the whole area(can be shown untrue in small local communities anyhow). Private owners can exercise ANYTHING farthest from what is 'right' just by crusting themselves with childish,ignorantly spoken 'righteousness'. Believe you me. They'd rather rent to those unsavory than have an honest, good tenant. MUM is the (lack of) word.