Why I believe Manufactured Housing is the Solution to our affordable housing crisis

[Logan M.]

Let's start with a quick history lesson, is a conversation about affordable housing any more relevant than the day a terrible CPI report driving Shelter Costs is released?

Here is a graph of the number of units sold as a percent of overall housing stock.

As you can see in the 1970's Manufactured housing was at its peak making up 22% of annual housing units produced. That number today is closer to 6% and the number has gone from 600,000 manufactured homes annually to 100,000 in 2021.

NIMBY has killed manufactured home communities but what we don't talk about enough is their versatility. If new communities were being built on the outskirts of cities and that trend continued, as cities grew new parks would provide for parks to (I know this can be a bad word) be gentrified without losing the affordable housing. It is a natural cycle in which these communities are developed as cities grow.

The problem is that Manufactured Home Communities are being closed without alternatives. The capacity exists to build hundreds of thousands of homes per year that directly benefit low-income areas. 

We will not build out the current housing shortage in America with the conventional thinking of the last few decades, it will take a variety of solutions working together.

Build apartments, build new manufactured home communities, fill vacant spaces in communities, create more accessory dwelling units, allow for density where it makes sense, and pull out all the stops to fix this crisis.