Charlotte Oliver is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
WILLISTON — Tim Cook’s eyes widened as he threw his hands up in exasperation. Sitting in his living room, the 78-year-old explained how much his community of manufactured homes means to him — and how frustrated he is with the state.
Along the curved roads of Williston Woods Homeowners Association, most residents like Cook are seniors who get by on a fixed income. They cannot afford to make home improvements, Cook said. And some renos, like bathtub railings, are especially important for seniors, he said.
Usually someone who lives in a manufactured or mobile home park can apply for state money to help pay for home-improvement projects. But Cook’s community, as a homeowners association, isn’t a mobile home park under Vermont law — so the state won’t list it on the registry that opens up those funds.
Cook is one of 47 residents in the neighborhood, a designated affordable housing community for seniors. As a member of the association, he can afford a multi-bedroom house adorned with matte white siding — and, uniquely, ownership of the land it sits on.
That’s why the state says the residents don’t face the same challenges, or need the same support, as people in traditional mobile home parks. Cook and his neighbors disagree.
“The issue is that we’re not on the state registry — and it’s causing us a lot of grief,” Cook said.
Association leaders have been pressuring the state for years to recognize their community. After talks this spring, Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast, wrote to the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, which manages the registry. She asked them for an exception and never heard back.
“They are the only mobile home community that’s come forward in the state where they own their homes, they own the land underneath them and they own the park collectively,” Ram Hinsdale said.
The agency told Community News Service that state assistance is meant to help people more vulnerable than the residents. Officials don’t plan on recognizing the park under current laws but said they will continue to work with residents on other ways to help them.
The state offers grants for making repairs, installing foundations, hauling away abandoned homes and more. The manufactured home program has paid over $6 million in awards, the agency says.
To fit the state’s definition, at least two mobile homes have to sit on a piece of land owned by one owner. Right next door to Williston Woods Homeowners Association lives Williston Woods Cooperative Housing Corporation, a manufactured home co-op that functions almost exactly the same as the homeowners association.
But the co-op itself owns the whole park, while the association parcels land out for individual ownership. And the distinction earns the co-op a spot on the registry.
Most of the homes in Cook’s community were built in the 1980s, he said, and manufactured homes need more weatherization and frequent maintenance than traditional homes. Many people in the community can’t afford the repairs, said Cook, and getting maintenance done is often harder for older folks.
Joe Yandow, a 73-year-old who joined the community a few years ago, said his house needed major improvements when he moved in. An older woman with mobility issues owned the house before him, and she just couldn’t keep up with the repairs, Yandow said.
He said he had to renovate parts of the house and was denied funding at every step. Now he has a leak in the roof and needs the insulation in his attic replaced — but he’s not sure how to afford it.
“The state’s going to have to step up,” Yandow said, speaking for himself and his neighbors.
Cook said recently a number of residents helped a woman walk up the stairs outside her home. She should be able to build a ramp or install a stairlift device without having to cover the cost, Cook said.
Legislators tried to tackle the issue last year by proposing a bill to expand the definition of a manufactured home park. But officials at the Agency of Commerce and Community Development voiced concerns that a definition change would open the door for people who didn’t need the assistance. The bill was never passed.
This February, Cook and another community leader, Gary Nowak, told a Senate committee about their frustrations. The men stayed in contact with their senator, Ram Hinsdale, and asked her again to take action. She wrote the agency requesting to make an exception on the registry for the homeowners association but got no reply, she said.
The agency “legally cannot make an exception for Williston Woods as it does not meet the definition of a mobile home park,” said Scott Sharland, mobile home park coordinator for the agency’s housing department.
The state has programs to assist those in manufactured homes because they “do not own their land, which makes them particularly vulnerable to increases in lot rents and the possibility of evictions, park sales or park closures,” Sharland said, speaking on behalf of the department.
But residents at the homeowners association in Williston say they’re in need, too. “Just add us to the damn registry,” Yandow said.
The agency wants to find “the best way to accommodate” the homeowners association, Sharland said, “without undermining the purpose of the mobile home park registry.”
So far, it hasn’t.
