'Not Mobile' podcast investigates mismanagement in Northfield's mobile home park
Bel Clare Estates in Waite Park is one of three Minnesota manufactured home parks recently purchased by a Utah investment firm.
Martin Moylan | MPR News
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: In many ways, mobile home parks represent people's chances at the American dream-- home ownership, right? But owning your mobile home while leasing the land under it puts people in a precarious position. In a new investigative podcast, Cait Kelley uncovered how the mishmash of federal, state, and local jurisdictions make it close to impossible for most mobile home park residents to get support when corporate park owners don't hold up their end of the deal.
Her investigation all started in her hometown of Northfield, Minnesota a year ago when she was with KYMN radio. It led her down a year long uncovering of the challenges some mobile home dwellers in Minnesota face. Let's listen to a little audio.
SUBJECT: So they received a letter from Lakeshore, and it already indicated a $65 increase in the rent. Like, hey, welcome to our community.
SUBJECT 2: They can't make people sign new lease agreements because they already have lease agreements.
SUBJECT 3: We never had these many rules. The original lease was one piece of paper.
SUBJECT 4: Having them ask for their pets to be removed and hearing a family say they were told, well, if you can't get rid of it, then kill your dog.
SUBJECT 5: They said they're going to do the roads, redo the sewers, and stuff like that-- they lie, they lie, they lie.
SUBJECT 6: This has happened to us. It's also happened to 1,000 people around the nation.
SUBJECT 7: What happens to the people that get caught up in all this? You wind up on the street.
CATHY WURZER: Cait Kelley is the creator of the podcast Not Mobile and she's with us right now. Hey, thanks, Kate. How are you?
CAIT KELLEY: Hi. Really good, Cathy. How are you today?
CATHY WURZER: Good. Thanks for joining us. Say, I know this was going on-- you centered your attention at the mobile home park in Northfield, Minnesota. What sparked your interest?
CAIT KELLEY: So last summer, I had kind of decided to to pivot to journalism. I had studied political science in my undergrad, and then I realized that I'm really interested in radio and really interested in investigative journalism. And the only thing I was missing was some actual experience.
So I got an internship with the news director of KYMN radio, Rich Larson, and was helping cover just the day to day news happening in Northfield. I would attend city council meetings, right kind of 300 word short little articles, find out what was going on. And right at that time, it just so happened that residents started reporting at Viking Terrace Mobile Home Park in Northfield that they were receiving these really long documents-- these brand new leases that were 35 pages long, double sided, full of super strict rules.
For example, overnight guests must be registered by their resident host at the office during office hours. Failure to register your guest will subject them to immediate removal-- really scary kind of legal language. And people were receiving violation letters at their door with photos of their property and then something circled in red marker that was apparently wrong. And these letters were saying, well, if you don't fix this violation, you could face eviction.
And rent had also been increased $65, which was a 15% rent increase. So residents started reporting these things to the city council and to local officials. And some resident advocates in the community were really bringing this to attention, and starting to host meetings with everybody from the park, and inviting the press and city officials to hear about the experiences of what was going on.
And so I first heard about it from a news perspective, and then very quickly after googling the company, and realizing they owned five more parks in Minnesota. It became clear to me that this was a really big story that I wasn't going to be able to cover in 300 words.
CATHY WURZER: Now, we should say that the company in question is Lakeshore Management, right?
CAIT KELLEY: Yes.
CATHY WURZER: New owner, is that correct?
CAIT KELLEY: Yes. The previous owners of Viking Terrace live in the community. And they decided to retire, decided they didn't want to manage the mobile home park anymore. And they sold to Lakeshore Management for $5 million, about 180 homes in Viking Terrace.
And Lakeshore management operates out of Florida. They own more than 100 parks in the country. It was hard to find an exact number. But they operate out of nine states.
CATHY WURZER: Do they have any other significant violations on their record?
CAIT KELLEY: So there are examples in court records in counties where they operate of issues with, perhaps, residents feeling like they were sold faulty units. Most of the examples of court records just show settlements outside of court. So I couldn't find any particular significant court action against the company that had resulted in any admission of problems, or guilt, or any particular things like that.
And what became clear over the course of you know investigating this company and talking to experts in the field is that they're pretty typical of the manufactured home park industry, right? They're not the worst. They're not the best. They're pretty middle of the road.
But the problem is that middle of the road in this industry really, really leads to a lot of suffering for residents. They feel trapped in their homes. They feel like they can't leave. They feel like they can't afford the increasing rent, but they also can't afford to leave and take a loss on their home.
And they can't find anything more affordable anywhere else. And then in the worst case scenario, residents who face eviction and then have an eviction on their record because they couldn't afford rent, then they really can't find anywhere more affordable to live.
CATHY WURZER: The bits of audio from some of the residents that you had there in the trailer, they do sound like they're kind of betwixt and between-- that they are just so shocked that this happened. Did they go to Attorney General Keith Ellison at all? Did he get involved?
CAIT KELLEY: Yeah, so that's what's kind of incredible about the work of the residents and the organizers in Northfield is they were able to capture the attention of Attorney General Keith Ellison. And Attorney General Ellison, this is actually an issue he's been aware of for a long time.
He worked on this issue in Congress previously, and then as Attorney General, he's tried to stick up for the rights of residents in Minnesota in mobile home parks. He's been very involved with the cooperative system in Minnesota. There are some parks that are actually owned by residents themselves and run and operated by residents themselves.
And he's visited those cooperatives and is very aware of the issue. So his office, and Assistant Attorney General Katherine Kelly, were able to reach out to Lakeshore and say these leases you're sending out, they potentially violate Minnesota law. In Minnesota, you can't change existing rules in mobile home parks in a significant way for residents who already lived there, because when they moved in, they agreed to a certain set of rules. And you can't just change that willy nilly in an extreme way.
And residents in mobile home parks in Minnesota also don't have to sign additional leases moving forward after they've signed their first one. So the idea that they were receiving these letters saying, sign these leases or you could face consequences, was a really big red flag for the Attorney General's office. So Lakeshore eventually did comply with that request and rescinded the original leases and rules in Viking Terrace, which was a really significant victory for the organizers in Viking Terrace.
But, of course, the problem of raising rent, that still exists today. There are no restrictions on how much rent can be raised in mobile home parks. There's kind of vague language in state statutes saying that it has to be reasonable, but there's no definition of "reasonable."
And there also doesn't seem to be a lot of enforcement of what could be considered reasonable. So rents routinely go up 15% a year.
CATHY WURZER: And can you extrapolate-- is this a pretty common situation in other mobile home parks in Minnesota?
CAIT KELLEY: Yeah. It is a really big issue. I got to speak to a lot of residents, and also I joined several resident Facebook groups in different mobile home parks owned by Lakeshore.
CATHY WURZER: That is former Minnesota resident and journalist Kate Kelly. She's an incoming Howard Center Investigative Fellow at the University of Maryland. You can listen to her podcast Not Mobile on Apple Podcasts.
Her investigation all started in her hometown of Northfield, Minnesota a year ago when she was with KYMN radio. It led her down a year long uncovering of the challenges some mobile home dwellers in Minnesota face. Let's listen to a little audio.
SUBJECT: So they received a letter from Lakeshore, and it already indicated a $65 increase in the rent. Like, hey, welcome to our community.
SUBJECT 2: They can't make people sign new lease agreements because they already have lease agreements.
SUBJECT 3: We never had these many rules. The original lease was one piece of paper.
SUBJECT 4: Having them ask for their pets to be removed and hearing a family say they were told, well, if you can't get rid of it, then kill your dog.
SUBJECT 5: They said they're going to do the roads, redo the sewers, and stuff like that-- they lie, they lie, they lie.
SUBJECT 6: This has happened to us. It's also happened to 1,000 people around the nation.
SUBJECT 7: What happens to the people that get caught up in all this? You wind up on the street.
CATHY WURZER: Cait Kelley is the creator of the podcast Not Mobile and she's with us right now. Hey, thanks, Kate. How are you?
CAIT KELLEY: Hi. Really good, Cathy. How are you today?
CATHY WURZER: Good. Thanks for joining us. Say, I know this was going on-- you centered your attention at the mobile home park in Northfield, Minnesota. What sparked your interest?
CAIT KELLEY: So last summer, I had kind of decided to to pivot to journalism. I had studied political science in my undergrad, and then I realized that I'm really interested in radio and really interested in investigative journalism. And the only thing I was missing was some actual experience.
So I got an internship with the news director of KYMN radio, Rich Larson, and was helping cover just the day to day news happening in Northfield. I would attend city council meetings, right kind of 300 word short little articles, find out what was going on. And right at that time, it just so happened that residents started reporting at Viking Terrace Mobile Home Park in Northfield that they were receiving these really long documents-- these brand new leases that were 35 pages long, double sided, full of super strict rules.
For example, overnight guests must be registered by their resident host at the office during office hours. Failure to register your guest will subject them to immediate removal-- really scary kind of legal language. And people were receiving violation letters at their door with photos of their property and then something circled in red marker that was apparently wrong. And these letters were saying, well, if you don't fix this violation, you could face eviction.
And rent had also been increased $65, which was a 15% rent increase. So residents started reporting these things to the city council and to local officials. And some resident advocates in the community were really bringing this to attention, and starting to host meetings with everybody from the park, and inviting the press and city officials to hear about the experiences of what was going on.
And so I first heard about it from a news perspective, and then very quickly after googling the company, and realizing they owned five more parks in Minnesota. It became clear to me that this was a really big story that I wasn't going to be able to cover in 300 words.
CATHY WURZER: Now, we should say that the company in question is Lakeshore Management, right?
CAIT KELLEY: Yes.
CATHY WURZER: New owner, is that correct?
CAIT KELLEY: Yes. The previous owners of Viking Terrace live in the community. And they decided to retire, decided they didn't want to manage the mobile home park anymore. And they sold to Lakeshore Management for $5 million, about 180 homes in Viking Terrace.
And Lakeshore management operates out of Florida. They own more than 100 parks in the country. It was hard to find an exact number. But they operate out of nine states.
CATHY WURZER: Do they have any other significant violations on their record?
CAIT KELLEY: So there are examples in court records in counties where they operate of issues with, perhaps, residents feeling like they were sold faulty units. Most of the examples of court records just show settlements outside of court. So I couldn't find any particular significant court action against the company that had resulted in any admission of problems, or guilt, or any particular things like that.
And what became clear over the course of you know investigating this company and talking to experts in the field is that they're pretty typical of the manufactured home park industry, right? They're not the worst. They're not the best. They're pretty middle of the road.
But the problem is that middle of the road in this industry really, really leads to a lot of suffering for residents. They feel trapped in their homes. They feel like they can't leave. They feel like they can't afford the increasing rent, but they also can't afford to leave and take a loss on their home.
And they can't find anything more affordable anywhere else. And then in the worst case scenario, residents who face eviction and then have an eviction on their record because they couldn't afford rent, then they really can't find anywhere more affordable to live.
CATHY WURZER: The bits of audio from some of the residents that you had there in the trailer, they do sound like they're kind of betwixt and between-- that they are just so shocked that this happened. Did they go to Attorney General Keith Ellison at all? Did he get involved?
CAIT KELLEY: Yeah, so that's what's kind of incredible about the work of the residents and the organizers in Northfield is they were able to capture the attention of Attorney General Keith Ellison. And Attorney General Ellison, this is actually an issue he's been aware of for a long time.
He worked on this issue in Congress previously, and then as Attorney General, he's tried to stick up for the rights of residents in Minnesota in mobile home parks. He's been very involved with the cooperative system in Minnesota. There are some parks that are actually owned by residents themselves and run and operated by residents themselves.
And he's visited those cooperatives and is very aware of the issue. So his office, and Assistant Attorney General Katherine Kelly, were able to reach out to Lakeshore and say these leases you're sending out, they potentially violate Minnesota law. In Minnesota, you can't change existing rules in mobile home parks in a significant way for residents who already lived there, because when they moved in, they agreed to a certain set of rules. And you can't just change that willy nilly in an extreme way.
And residents in mobile home parks in Minnesota also don't have to sign additional leases moving forward after they've signed their first one. So the idea that they were receiving these letters saying, sign these leases or you could face consequences, was a really big red flag for the Attorney General's office. So Lakeshore eventually did comply with that request and rescinded the original leases and rules in Viking Terrace, which was a really significant victory for the organizers in Viking Terrace.
But, of course, the problem of raising rent, that still exists today. There are no restrictions on how much rent can be raised in mobile home parks. There's kind of vague language in state statutes saying that it has to be reasonable, but there's no definition of "reasonable."
And there also doesn't seem to be a lot of enforcement of what could be considered reasonable. So rents routinely go up 15% a year.
CATHY WURZER: And can you extrapolate-- is this a pretty common situation in other mobile home parks in Minnesota?
CAIT KELLEY: Yeah. It is a really big issue. I got to speak to a lot of residents, and also I joined several resident Facebook groups in different mobile home parks owned by Lakeshore.
CATHY WURZER: That is former Minnesota resident and journalist Kate Kelly. She's an incoming Howard Center Investigative Fellow at the University of Maryland. You can listen to her podcast Not Mobile on Apple Podcasts.
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