Blog Posting # 761, Copyright 29 September 2023. EducateMHC
Parallel Perspectives. HUD-Code manufactured housing is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable factory-built housing! And land lease communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities & ‘mobile home parks’) comprise the investment real estate component of manufactured housing! EducateMHC is the online advocate, historian, trend tracker, and text resource for these two business models! To input this blog or connect with EducateMHC, telephone (317) 881-3815, email: gfa7156@aol.com, or visit www.educatemhc.com, to order Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry. This is the sole professional community management text in print today! And SWAN SONG is a history of land lease communities, and official record of annual MH production totals since 1955, and my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven – describes combat adventures in Vietnam, and a 45 year business career in MH and community ownership/management.
George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, Emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrine, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S. Marines, and author/editor of 20 books re MH, communities, business & management wisdom, and prayer.
YET ANOTHER STORM CLOUD – IN CA!
During the past two weeks I described three impending storm clouds potentially affecting the health of the manufactured housing industry:
- A national gathering of land lease community tenants and activists in Washington, DC. on 5-8 November 2023. We can thank predatory community operators for this. Here’s an extreme example of the offending business model: ‘…run (site) rents so high no one can afford them and have to leave. Management buys the home at a distressed price, but no one moves-in, oft due to the condition and negative reputation of the property.’ Source? Attendee at recent SECO Conference in Atlanta, GA.
- A recent Class Action Complaint – Jury Trial Demanded by homeowner/site lessee plaintiffs, against ten defendants – well known firms in MH and real estate asset class. Alleged actions? “…fix, raise, maintain, and/or stabilize manufactured home lot rental prices.” IMHO, there’s much to be read and learned ‘between the lines’ of this suit.
- Once again, pending manufactured housing chassis removal legislation, re HUD-Code, with unknown effects on our industry. The issue? How can we experience positive effects without incurring negative consequences? Read MHARR’s WHITE PAPER for details.
Well, we can add another storm cloud to this growing mix. Here I’ll quote, in part, a recent communique from a 45 year veteran of land lease community operations in California: “Another law suit to watch is our case against the governor and attorney general here in California. This is a law that goes into effect January 1, 2025 (that would mandate) all rent control provisions in the state override any and all terms of existing leases.” This law was passed because there’s a housing state of emergency in California.
OK folk, we appear to be on a less-than-desirable roll here, but at least we’re not hiding our head in the sand, ostrich-like. If you know of other such ‘clouds’, and or have insights relative to the four just described, please let me know via gfa7156@aol.com
Furthermore, I’ve been encouraged of late, to plan and host a Land Lease Community Caucus on 19 January 2024 during the Louisville MHShow at the state fairgrounds. Focus? The aforementioned ‘storm clouds’. Seems folk want to gather to learn more about these matters, brainstorm possible solutions, to encourage state and national leaders and industry advocates to not these issues in a vacuum. Are you interested in participating? If so, let me know via gfa7156@aol.com
READ ‘ECHO IN RAMADI’ YET?
Last week I introduced you to Major Scott A. Huesing’s firsthand story of U.S. Marines in Iraq’s deadliest city, i.e. ‘Echo in Ramadi’. Well, I’ve since finished that ‘read’, and here’re gems that resonated with me as a retired lieutenant colonel of Marines – of the Vietnam era.
“As the firefight wound down in the early morning hours, every Marine in 4th Platoon found out about the loss of Libby and began to feel it. The next day I carried their pain and mine, and I moved about numb and willing myself to not break down. I couldn’t because my Marines were looking to me for strength.” P.3
“Only select few make it into Infantry Officers Class, and not everyone makes it out. That is by design. The Marine Corps entrusts only the very best to command our nation’s finest.” P.12
“In fact, the experience of Ramadi could be best described as periods of extreme boredom punctuated by episodes of inexplicable chaos.” P.18
“It is not easy to kill another human being. Not for anyone – no matter how it is portrayed in fiction, on television, or in movies. There is nothing romantic or cavalier about it. It is horrific. Life-changing. Killing is what happens, and Marines are trained to kill. But in war, destruction is everywhere. It eats everything around you. Sometimes it eats you.” P.21
“What makes us good, what makes us great, is the brotherhood.” P.101
“Marines die in combat. It is inevitable. But the inevitability of death does not make it any less painful, any easier to accept. Every day, I remember that men I knew are now gone. Gone forever – and there is nothing that anyone can do to change that.” P.281
“Sadly, the dark echoes of our time in Iraq still resonate with many of Echo Company, who battle with the effects of post-traumatic stress (‘PTS’). Including me. I never refer to it as a disorder.” P.288
Finally, “Marines will always have a calling. They’ll always have a sense of duty and courage to run toward danger when others run from it. It’s cliché’, but true.” P.296
I have two dozen books in my library describing the fighting we did in the Republic of Vietnam more than a half century ago. I’ve added Scott’s book to this collection. And as many of you know, I shared my PTSD misadventures (‘mishaps’) – being unable to cry for ten years and being mirthful at funerals even longer – in my 2021 autobiography, ‘From Smitty Alpha 6 to MHMaven’. Scott’s book is available via amazon.com, mine from educatemhc.com
SAN FRANCISCO, CHICAGO & CHINA
Victor Davis Hanson is one of my favorite commentators relative to contemporary national and international matters of import (‘consequence’). Following direct quotations are gleaned from a recent talk titled: ‘Imperialism: Lessons From History’ – as published in the Hillsdale College communique ‘Imprimis’ for July/August 2023, p.5.
“…think of present day San Francisco, where people are injecting themselves with drugs, fornicating, urinating, and defecating on the streets, and downtown businesses are closing in large numbers, or Chicago, where the murder and crime rates are making life there unbearable for so many. Our major cities are going to rot at the same time we are pledged to giving $120 billion to Ukraine, already making its military budget the third largest in the world.”
“…these (Chinese owned) ports are not just random acquisitions. They control the Panama Canal. They monitor the entry into the Mediterranean at Tangiers and the exit at Port Said. The two largest ports in Europe, Antwerp and Rotterdam, are in the hands of the Chinese, as are the artificial islands in the South China Sea, a gateway for 50 percent of global oceanic traffic.”
And, “If the Chinese have an imperial enclave in Africa, they rope it off and don’t allow Africans nearby. Nor do they allow colonial peoples, for the most part, to go to Beijing and be educated or integrated. Like the Ottomans who conquered Constantinople in 1453, China has a monolithic culture and makes no apologies for its ambition to be a global imperial power.”
Those three paragraphs say a lot about our world today. Are you paying attention? I long ago stopped reading most of the secular press – mainly because of what they do not report. My sole exception is the ‘New York Times’ on Sunday only. Otherwise, most of the news I read and believe comes from the weekly newspaper, ‘The EPOCH TIMES’. Try it; you likely appreciate it as I do.