7 May 2019; www.educatemhc.com
Perspective. ‘Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing.’
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Motto: ‘U Support US & WE Serve U!’ Online media goal? Inform, opine, transform & improve manufactured housing & land lease community lifestyle! Visit www.educatemhc.com
I.
Your Responses to Blog Posting # 531’s
Rejoinder to MHARR’s ‘Lead, Follow…or Get Out of the Way’
I hardly hit the SEND button, getting blog # 531 on its’ way, before we started receiving responses continuing well into the following week. And the comments have been interesting, thought-provoking, confirming. Here’re three response categories we’ll cover here: blog # 532
• Blog # 531 missed the ‘elephant in the room’! The next change, and potential trend setter, for the manufactured housing industry! Know what it is? Read on…
• Thanks to an industry colleague, I now know who MHARR board members were at year end 2017. Have asked MHARR to confirm contemporary accuracy of list; but to date, no response. Not surprised. Remember; these are the ‘take the bull by the horn’ leaders few people know. I recognized barely half the names on the list I received.
• Actionable Items. One blog reader didn’t feel I went far enough encouraging attendees at MHI’s MHCongress in New Orleans, to force discussion of key, timely industry issues during that venue. Then at MHI’s Washington, DC fly-in on 3 June; and again, at an MHAlive Think Tank gathering on 5 August at the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN.
So, let’s begin anew, and in more detail.
The ‘elephant in the room’ = “…imminent departure of Dick Jennison” – MHI’s top salaried executive. Why ‘so described’? Because this is our (meaning ‘thee & me’, if an MHI member) first opportunity in nearly a decade, to persuade-pressure-petition the institute’s board members in general, the selection committee in particular – for the first time ever – to hire a STRATEGIC THINKER for us to follow, leading our industry back to prosperity! Have you read or heard anyone else encouraging such thinking & action on this matter? Neither have I! This industry observer has endured no fewer than six, in my opinion, milquetoast leaders since 1978! NOW we have an opportunity for positive, forthright change! Let’s prepare for it! Let’s experience it! We deserve the BEST available! OR, will we squander the opportunity – again?
More on the elephant. One commentator, relative to this MHJI succession matter, suggests each job applicant ‘…write a paper describing their view of the industry’s future. Let the finalists’ papers, without attribution, be widely circulated, with comments directed back to the selection committee’ – before they make a final decision. Agreed! And said papers could easily be published in MHInsider magazine, Manufactured Housing Review, and the Allen Letter.
MHARR board members. Still researching this, striving to ‘fill in the blanks’, putting corporate identities next to names of 16 board members and Mark Weiss. In my opinion, if MHARR truly believes in a need for improved national advocacy among post-production segments of the manufactured housing industry, they should step forward and clearly identify themselves as leaders of said effort, rather than be publicly identified in some other fashion. Agree?
Actionable Items. Well, MHARR to its’ credit has fired off a worthy ‘first volley’ to this end, given their ‘Call on HUD Secretary to End Discriminatory & Exclusionary Zoning of HUD-regulated Manufactured Homes’ (4/30/2019 Press Release). Hey, correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t’ that headline have been more effective if the word ‘against’ had been used instead of ‘of’ in front of ‘HUD-regulated…’? After all, ‘discriminatory & exclusionary zoning’ are typical, widespread ‘local regulatory barriers to all forms of affordable housing’. And the time has come to set them aside. to increase the supply of affordable housing where needed = everywhere!
There are certainly other actionable items germane to getting the HUD-Coded manufactured housing industry back on its’ 100,000 units/year shipment pace. What steps are YOU taking to this end? The inquiring weekly blog postings at www.educatemhc.com would like to know! Also via gfa7156@aol.com
II.
Affordable Housing Battles
Everyone’s heard of the discriminatory & exclusionary zoning abbreviation NIMBY (‘Not In My Back Yard!’), but how ‘bout LULU & BANANA? The former = ‘Locally Unwanted Land Use’), the latter = ‘Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone!’
Well, guess what, there’s a new anti-discriminatory & exclusionary zoning abbreviation ‘in town’, so to speak. It’s YIMBY, and the letters stand for ‘YES, In My Back Yard!’ it’s OK to build affordable housing! It’s the enlightened mantra land use planners and zoning regulation reformers use to “clear away the regulatory barriers and let developers build more housing”, figuring “the laws of supply and demand will take over…and (housing) prices will go down.” But all is not well with YIMBY these days. According to Land Lines magazine, “zoning changes…only accelerate gentrification and displacement – disproportionately harming low-income families and communities of color.” Where does that leave YIMBY? Guess we’ll just have to watch and see.
Then there’s the contemporary notion, “When it comes to the income of those who deserve a government handout, how high is too high?” Thinking about public safety employees (firemen & police officers) and those in the medical support fields (nurses & technicians) here. Critics of this refocus on affordable housing for the middle (working) class, claim it risks redirecting scarce $ resources away from citizens with little to no income….” And with this, come claims of ‘political showmanship’, where a section of the local population who votes at higher rates, is maybe viewed more sympathetically – and supportively, than those living in poverty or are homeless. Comments in this paragraph edited from the Washington Post.
Do you see how affordable housing is demanding more and more attention these days? Well, if you want to learn more, and become involved in helping resolve this perennial national crisis (i.e. shortage of affordable housing), plan to be present the morning of 9 September, 2019, at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis, IN. This is the occasion of the 28th annual Networking Roundtable, planned and hosted by EducateMHC. U.S. Senator Todd Young will be keynote presenter that morning. He heads a nine senator task force on affordable housing, and being from Indiana, is in the midst of a vibrant Midwest manufactured housing industry. For more information, visit www.educatemhc.com or phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764.
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