MOBILE HOME PARKS

Mobile home parks have become one of the only remaining affordable housing options in Miami.  As the development bubble progressed and land prices skyrocketed in the early 2000s, mobile home park closures dramatically increased, often leaving residents with no housing alternatives.  The real estate crash brought a brief respite in closures but did not abate deteriorating conditions.  Ultimately the only solution is resident or nonprofit purchase of the parks.  However, there are few, if any, subsidies available for subsidizing these purchases.

The Community Justice Project supported the work of the Mobile Homeowners’ Associations and the Mobile Home Council, formed by South Florida Jobs with Justice and Vecinos Unidos, uniting the residents of low-income mobile home parts within Miami-Dade County who have formed homeowners’ associations. 

Currently, CJP directly represents the homeowners’ associations in three low-income mobile home parks in pursuing park-wide matters related to excessive rental amounts and substandard conditions, matters which collectively will affect nearly 400 families. In one case, CJP successfully defended residents from a water termination due to the park owner’s failure to pay the water bill, and succeeded stopping a water shut off that would have impacted more than 100 families.

Other legal support that has included :

  • Challenging park owners' bans on “parties, public meetings, or assemblies in the park” and threatening those who do not respect the rule with eviction. This park rule violates the Florida Mobile Home Act and runs afoul of mobile home owners’ rights of assembly and right to invite guests and public officials to their part.
  • Challenging 2008 lot rental increase on mobile 42 homeowners that would have tripled the amount of rent residents paid to the park.
  • Securing a county-wide moratorium on mobile home park redevelopment permitting to protect residents from being displaced.
  • Recording Notices of Right to Purchase Mobile Home Park. This notice entitles homeowners, under the Florida Mobile Home Act, the right of first refusal when the park they live in is put up for sale.