S.Amdt. 1006

SA 1006. Mrs. SHAHEEN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed

[[Page S6112]]

to amendment SA 948 proposed by Mr. Shelby to the bill H.R. 3055,
making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice,
Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2020, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:

At the appropriate place in title II of division D, insert
the following:
Sec. 2__.  It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) more than 17,000,000 people live in manufactured homes
and benefit from high-quality affordable homes which provide
stability;
(2) owners of manufactured homes have disproportionately
low-income households, and in 2013, the median annual
household income for living in manufactured housing was
$28,400;
(3) approximately 75 percent of manufactured home
households earn less than $50,000 per year;
(4) more than 10 percent of veterans in the United States
live in manufactured homes;
(5) in late 1990, manufactured housing represented \2/3\ of
the new affordable housing produced in the United States and
remains a significant source of unsubsidized affordable
housing in the United States;
(6) in 2015, the average cost per square foot for a new
manufactured home was 48 dollars, less than half of the cost
per square foot for a new-site built, structure-only home,
which was $101;
(7) in 2009, 43 percent of all new homes that sold for less
than $150,000 were manufactured homes;
(8) manufactured homes account for 23 percent of new home
sales under $200,000;
(9) more than 50,000 manufactured home communities, also
referred to as ``mobile home parks'', exist throughout the
United States;
(10) more than 2,900,000 manufactured homes are placed in
manufactured home communities;
(11) manufactured home communities provide critical
affordable housing, but receive very little Federal, State,
or local funds to subsidize the cost of manufactured homes;
(12) manufactured home owners in such communities may own
the home, but they do not own the land under the home, which
leaves the home owners vulnerable to rent increases,
arbitrary rule enforcement, and in the case of a manufactured
home community owner converting the land to some other use,
community closure;
(13) an eviction or closure of a manufactured home
community is very disruptive to a resident who may be unable
to pay the thousands of dollars it takes to move the
manufactured home or find a new location for the manufactured
home;
(14) in an effort to preserve a crucial source of
affordable housing within the past two decades, a national
network of housing providers has helped residents purchase
and own the land under the manufactured home community, and
manage the manufactured home community;
(15) nationwide, there are more than 1,000 stable,
permanent ownership cooperatives or nonprofit-owned
developments in more than a dozen States;
(16) members of manufactured home communities continue to
own such homes individually, own an equal share of the land
beneath the entire manufactured home community, participate
in the governing of the community, and elect a board of
directors who make major decisions within the manufactured
home community by a democratic vote;
(17) in New Hampshire, more than 30 percent of manufactured
home communities are owned by residents;
(18) resident-owned cooperatives and nonprofit owned
communities have also flourished in Vermont, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota;
(19) nationwide, only 2 percent of all manufactured home
communities are resident or nonprofit-owned;
(20) manufactured home community owners often prefer to
devise such property tax free, rather than selling the
community, in order to avoid capital gain taxes;
(21) when the owner of a manufactured home community dies,
the heirs of the owner frequently sell the community to the
highest bidder which results in displacement for dozens and
sometimes hundreds of families; and
(22) in order to preserve manufactured home communities in
the future, a Federal tax benefit should be established to
induce manufactured home community owners to sell such
properties to residents that the owners have known for
decades, or to nonprofit organizations.
______