Rising rents at mobile home parks in Arizona are squeezing residents, particularly seniors on fixed incomes.
"It's a problem, no doubt, because there is no rent control on the lot, so they can keep making it go up and up and up,” said Sabrina Walters, who owns SLW Realty Group.
While residents generally own their manufactured homes, they rent the land underneath — which in many places across the state is going up in price.
Debbie Suits, who lives at a mobile home park in Tempe, said when she and her husband moved in five years ago, the lot lease was $700. Now it’s $1,000, but she said they have nowhere else to go.
“Go where? My husband and I have talked about it — that's enough, we’re out of here, tell me where else I can go,” Suits said.
For Julie Baker, she has no choice but to leave because the mobile home park where she lives is on tribal land and they’re not renewing the lease that’s set to expire in 2026.
“So that means the homes have to be out of here and all of this has to be destroyed and down to bare land before it's given back on the day of closing,” Butler, who is also a licensed Realtor said, adding she doesn’t know where she will go next.
Another resident in north Phoenix, who asked to not be identified, told ABC15 that she has to move back to her hometown of Wisconsin after being priced out of her mobile home.
“It’s me and quite a few other residents that I've talked to that have put a lot of money into the place that they bought,” she said. “They were paying the original lot fee when they got here then they invest all this money into this home and then the rent goes up so much, the land fee rent goes up so much that they can't afford to live here anymore, and they have to leave.”
Butler is trying to change that.
She started the nonprofit called Love From Above Charitable Trust. The goal is to help find affordable housing for older adults who are at risk and low income.
“I’m looking at south of Tucson, there’s some great areas there where we can do something but the problem is zoning. But, I’m hoping to get a specialist for that,” Butler said.
The goal is to buy land where people can put their mobile homes on and live affordably.
