The Washington Post - USA (2022-06-12)

SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE G3

ing the pandemic, loans for buy-

ing manufactured homes often

come with higher interest rates,

limited opportunities to refi-

nance and fewer protections than

those for typical mortgages, ac-

cording to a Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau report. Mobile

home owners are also more likely

to fall behind on housing pay-

ments than those who own site-

built homes, the CFPB found. And

because most residents own their

homes but rent land, not being

able to cover rent costs can often

mean losing homes that they do

own.

“Almost across the board, park

residents are renting the land

under their homes,” said Esther

Sullivan, an associate professor of

sociology at the University of Col-

orado at Denver whose work fo-

cuses on mobile homes. “So a

missed lot payment puts not only

their housing at risk, but can also

wipe out their accrued wealth.”

In Rochester, N.H., Sue Veal,

69, bought a mobile home in a

55-and-older park for $119,000 six

years ago.

Listed rents have risen steadily

— 50 percent over six years — even

as the park does away with ser-

vices like recycling collection. But

demand is on the upswing: A

friend in the park recently sold

their mobile home in a day, for

$220,000 in cash, nearly double

what they paid for it a few years

ago.

“Prices are going up, but people

are going to have nowhere to go,”

said Veal, a retired biotech quality

assurance manager who now re-

ceives about $2,000 a month in

Social Security. “We’re all worried

about a future where our money is

going to run out.”

Linda denOuden traded in a

two-bedroom apartment near

Portland, Ore., for a mobile home

last year thinking it would be a

good way to save money after her

husband died. She used money

she received from his life insur-

ance policy to buy a $70,000 unit.

But her lot rent is going up nearly

10 percent to more than $1,000 a

month, making it just about im-

possible for her to make ends

meet on Social Security and a

small pension.

The 68-year-old has started

putting off routine doctor visits

and mammograms to save money.

It has been years since she went to

a dentist.

“Living on a fixed income

means there is no room for extra

expenses,” she said. “I am one

catastrophe away from losing ev-

erything I have left. It’s a never-

ending worry I live with every

day.”

locked-in monthly payments, tax

breaks and appreciating home

values — or the flexibility or pro-

tections associated with renting.

They said they often felt caught in

a state of limbo: Their mobile

home is their biggest investment,

yet it’s useless if they can’t afford

to rent the land on which it sits.

Moving a mobile home — if it is

new enough to be moved at all —

can cost as much as $15,000,

which means residents are often

beholden to the parks where they

live. Many municipalities also

have rules governing when and

how trailers can be transported.

“You have a captive audience in

mobile home parks,” said Kate

MacTavish, an associate professor

at Oregon State University whose

research focuses on affordable

housing and trailer parks. “They

may own their homes, but they

can’t just pick up and move.”

In interviews with a dozen mo-

bile home residents around the

country, all said their rents had

risen this year. Most reported in-

creases of 10 to 25 percent, al-

though some said monthly pay-

ments had doubled or tripled.

Their options were increasingly

limited, too: Many said they had

bought trailers after being priced

out of apartments, homes and

condominiums and were now un-

sure of where to go next. They had

used up their savings or taken on

high-interest loans to buy manu-

factured homes with little resale

value. Some were considering

moving into motels, crashing

with friends or living in their cars

until they could find a more per-

manent arrangement.

Christy Andrews thought she

was making a sound investment

when she scooped up a mobile

home for $5,000 in Torrance,

Calif., six years ago. But now she

says it was a big mistake. Her lot

rent — the monthly fee she pays

for the plot of land where her

trailer is parked — has nearly

doubled, to $1,700, in the six years

she has lived at Knolls Manor and

now takes up nearly all of the

$1,900 a month she receives in

Social Security disability checks.

“It’s horrible,” said Andrews,

43, who left her sales job in the

make up about 6 percent of U.S.
residences, according to federal
data. Some experts suggest those
numbers could soon rise as more
people are priced out of tradition-
al houses and apartments.
Mobile homes prices range
from less than $25,000 in Nebras-
ka, Iowa and Ohio to more than
$125,000 in Washington state.
Overall, they tend to be three to
five times cheaper than tradition-
al single-family homes, according
to an analysis of census data by
LendingTree.
But rising demand for afford-
able housing has put particular
pressure on the market. National-
ly, the average sales price of man-
ufactured homes has risen nearly
50 percent during the pandemic,
from $82,900 to $123,200, census
data shows. Meanwhile, average
new home prices rose 22 percent
in that period, according to gov-
ernment figures.
However, less is known about
how much mobile home owners
pay to rent the land under their
homes. Lot rents typically rise 4 to
6 percent a year, according to
industry sources, though there is
little data on exact costs or price
increases. That lack of transpar-
ency is complicated by the fact
that few cities or states have rules
governing rent increases at mo-
bile home parks.
“Land prices are going up,
housing costs are going up and
that’s spilling into mobile homes,”
said Casey Dawkins, a professor of
urban studies and planning at the
University of Maryland. “There’s
also an overall shortage of afford-
able housing, particularly in cities
and the suburbs around them.”
At the same time, park owners
and operators are facing higher
costs for utilities, workers and
property taxes, all of which are
probably being factored into
higher rents for lots, according to
John Pawlowski, managing direc-
tor at real estate research firm
Green Street Advisors.
In many cases, residents like
Rubio said they own the trailer
they live in but don’t enjoy the
perks of homeownership — like

MOBILE HOMES FROM G1

‘People are going

to have nowhere to

go,’ resident says

mobile home. Since then, she has

spent another $30,000 turning it

into her “forever dream home.”

But with lot rents rising, she says

she isn’t sure she’ll be able to

afford staying there for much lon-

ger. Many others are making simi-

lar calculations: There are already

14 mobiles for sale in her park.

“I don’t know what to do, I

really don’t,” she said. “I was going

to put this up for sale, but then

where do I go? I used up all of my

cash to buy this.”

Few municipalities and states

have rules governing rent increas-

es or evictions at mobile home

parks, although that is beginning

to change. Vermont, for example,

requires that park owners notify

residents of plans to sell and allow

them a chance to buy the proper-

ty. Others, like Oakland, Calif., are

revising zoning laws to allow

manufactured housing in more

parts of town.

“Many municipalities continue

to ignore mobile home parks, and

that, in no small part, has to do

with the stigma around them,”

said MacTavish of Oregon State.

“It is one of the only forms of

affordable housing we have, yet

we don’t embrace it in ways that

would make it work much better

for families.”

The circumstances surround-

ing mobile homeownership are

yet another way the housing mar-

ket has worsened long-standing

inequities. While homeowners

enjoyed cheaper mortgages dur-

of which are very important as

these communities age,” said Lesli

Gooch, chief executive of the

Manufactured Housing Institute.

“When a community does change

hands, often times it’s because of a

significant need for improve-

ments and a lack of capital from

the existing owners to make such

improvements.”

Intensifying housing shortages

during the pandemic have given

park owners additional leverage

to increase rents, MacTavish and

others say, as rising home prices

force renters out of apartments

and houses. As a result, many

smaller, independent park opera-

tors are also finding they can raise

rents without cutting into poten-

tial demand.

“These creditor owners will

keep squeezing you and squeez-

ing you until you run out of mon-

ey,” said Barbara, 78, who lives in a

mobile home near Los Angeles

where monthly rents went up

nearly $200, or 15 percent, as soon

as an institutional investor took

over last year.

Like many others in the 55-and-

older community, Barbara — who

asked to be identified only by her

first name because she fears retal-

iation — lives on a fixed income.

She retired in 2014 from a de-

cades-long career in commercial

real estate and lives on $1,700 a

month in Social Security.

She sold her two-bedroom con-

dominium two years ago and used

that money to buy a $295,0 00

aerospace industry because of

kidney failure. “There’s no way to

keep up. Do you pay rent or get

your medicine or buy gas to take

your kid to school?”

The only way to move, she said,

would be to give up the only home

she has ever owned. Nearby rents

are astronomical: Studios can

easily cost $2,000 a month, and

two-bedrooms are closer to

$3,000. Many of her neighbors

have been evicted and end up

homeless, she said, and she fears

she’ll soon be living in her Chevy

Tahoe with her rescue dogs, Jozie

and Nyah.

Bessire & Casenhiser, which

manages Knolls Manor, did not

respond to multiple requests for

comment.

Private-equity firms including

Stockbridge Capital, Carlyle

Group and Apollo Global Man-

agement have been rapidly buy-

ing up mobile home parks over

the past decade, often using fund-

ing from government-sponsored

lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie

Mac. Once they take over, one of

their first moves is to raise rent,

said MacTavish of Oregon State.

But industry groups say those

rent increases are often necessary

to cover the costs of improving

and maintaining property

grounds, particularly when parks

change hands.

“When new owners come in,

they’re doing infrastructure up-

grades, they’re improving the

streets and adding amenities, all

CHERYL SENTER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Sue Veal, 69, gardens at her home in Rochester, N.H., in May. She bought her mobile home outright six

years ago, but listed rents at her park have risen 50 percent since then even as services there declined.

These online campaigns can

spook institutions unfamiliar

with the politics of caste, Soundar-

arajan said. “They ask, ‘Are there

people in their own community

that disagree with them? Maybe

this is a battle we don’t want to get

into.’ ”

Google had previously vetted

Soundararajan to give a similar

talk, but executives postponed her

presentation to the Google News

team.

Then the controversy within

Google migrated to an 8,000-per-

son email group for South Asian

employees, according to three cur-

rent employees. After Gupta post-

ed a link in the email group to a

petition to reinstate the talk, re-

spondents argued that caste dis-

crimination does not exist, that

caste is not a thing in the United

States and that efforts to raise

awareness of these issues in the

United States would sow further

division. Some called caste equity

a form of reverse discrimination

against the highest-ranked castes

because of India’s affirmative ac-

tion system for access to education

and government jobs. Others said

people from marginalized castes

lack the education to properly in-

terpret Hindu scriptures around

castes.

To Soundararajan, Google was

long overdue for a conversation on

caste equity. Pichai, the CEO, “is

Indian and he is Brahman and he

grew up in Tamil Nadu. There is no

way you grow up in Tamil Nadu

and not know about caste because

of how caste politics shaped the

conversation,” Soundararajan

told The Post. “If he can make

passionate statements about

Google’s [diversity, equity and in-

clusion] commitments in the

wake of George Floyd, he absolute-

ly should be making those same

commitments to the context he

comes from where he is someone

of privilege.”

Soundararajan said Pichai has

not responded to the letter she

sent him in April. Google declined

to comment.

According to Gupta’s letter and

Soundararajan, the decision to

cancel the talk came from Gupta’s

boss, Cathy Edwards, a vice presi-

dent of engineering, who had no

experience or expertise in caste.

In a Google Meet video call in

mid-May after the talk was can-

celed, Soundararajan said Ed-

wards acknowledged that Google

had subjected her to a level of

vetting no previous speaker had to

endure. Google declined to make

Edwards available to comment.

Soundararajan warned that

this level of scrutiny would mean

that no Dalit would be allowed to

speak on caste. She compared it to

not letting an abuse survivor

speak about the #MeToo move-

ment. Edwards acknowledged the

challenge but said she had to deal

with people crying on the other

side of the line, Soundararajan

said.

Amid all the controversy, Gupta

and Soundararajan posted on

YouTube a version of the talk they

had intended to give. During the

video call, Edwards said she

watched the talk and thought it

was amazing.

filed a lawsuit against Cisco alleg-

ing caste discrimination, i ts

phone lines were flooded with re-

ports about bias and the group

once again began collecting data.

(Although U.S. employment law

does not explicitly prohibit caste-

based discrimination, the DFEH

argues that caste is protected un-

der existing statutes. Caste is a

protected category in India, how-

ever. This leaves companies such

as Google and Cisco, which have

offices in both countries, with dif-

ferent standards for discrimina-

tion.)

After the Google Walkout, Gup-

ta went on to successfully advo-

cate for ending forced arbitration

both in Congress and inside

Google, where she is also known

for her work on diversity. Last

September, Gupta was ap-

proached by two Google employ-

ees about the caste discrimination

they had witnessed at the compa-

ny, she wrote in her departure

note. That prompted her to invite

Soundararajan to present at a

speaker series Gupta hosted on

diversity, equity and inclusion for

Google News.

For the presentation, Soundar-

arajan hoped to talk to the 60 or so

Google employees scheduled to

attend — who work in product and

engineering in News and Search —

about caste equity in newsrooms,

building on a talk she delivered at

Google’s Cloud Next event in No-

vember 2021. She planned to ex-

plain the makeup of mainstream

Indian publications and the im-

portance of highlighting Dalit

journalists when reporting on is-

sues such as climate change or

elections, because of the insight

they could bring from the perspec-

tive of the most vulnerable.

Two days before Soundarara-

jan’s scheduled presentation, sev-

en Google employees sent emails

to company leaders and Gupta

“with inflammatory language

about how they felt harmed and

how they felt their lives were at

risk by the discussion of caste eq-

uity,” according to emails sent by

Gupta. Some of the complaints

“copied content from known mis-

information sites to malign the

reputation of the speaker,” Gupta’s

emails said — sites and organiza-

tions that have targeted academ-

ics in the United States and Cana-

da who are critical of Hindu na-

tionalism or caste hierarchy.

criticism, and women take the hit,”
she wrote. Gupta was one of the
organizers behind the 2018
Google Walkout, in which 20,000
Google employees around the
world briefly walked out of their
offices to protest the company’s
mishandling of sexual harass-
ment. The other six organizers had
already left the company.
In a statement, Google spokes-
person Shannon Newberry wrote,
“Caste discrimination has no
place in our workplace. We also
have a very clear, publicly shared
policy against retaliation and dis-
crimination in our workplace.”
“We also made the decision to
not move forward with the pro-
posed talk which — rather than
bringing our community together
and raising awareness — was cre-
ating division and rancor,” New-
berry wrote.
Equality Labs, based in Oak-
land, Calif., advocates for the civil
rights of the caste formerly re-
ferred to as “untouchables” in a
millennia-old system of social hi-
erarchy that originated with Hin-
duism in India but has proliferat-
ed to different religions across
South Asia. Many Indians have
moved to the United States to
work in tech companies, and sev-
eral Big Tech CEOs are of Indian
origin, including Pichai, Micro-
soft’s Satya Nadella and Twitter’s
Parag Agrawal. Some employees
allege the patterns of discrimina-
tion have been replicated within
Silicon Valley companies.
Soundararajan, who is Dalit,
spent years persuading policy
teams at social media companies
to include caste as a protected
category in their hate speech pol-
icies. In meetings, company repre-
sentatives seemed to have little
understanding about caste, even
though it impacted hate speech in
their biggest markets, she said.
So Equality Labs had to gather
data and help social media compa-
nies develop cultural competency
on caste. The group took the same
research-driven approach to ex-
amining caste bias in the work-
place.
Through its advocacy on con-
tent moderation, Equality Labs
developed a strong network of
Dalit tech workers. After the Cali-
fornia Department of Fair Em-
ployment and Housing (DFEH)

GOOGLE FROM G1

‘Division and rancor’: Inside Google’s decision to cancel a talk on caste bias

2018 PHOTO BY BEBETO MATTHEWS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tanuja Gupta, a senior manager at Google News, resigned over the

decision to uninvite Thenmozhi Soundararajan from speaking.

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