By Brooke Burns
Only a third of Vermont’s 20,000 occupied mobile homes qualify for the state’s mobile home park registry, a list often included in criteria for home improvement loans and grants. A House bill introduced last week seeks to include more of those homes, and homeowners, in the list — and give them more financial opportunities.
The bill, H.618, aims to expand the legal definition of mobile home parks to include communities of mobile home owners who own their own lots. Currently, state law defines mobile home parks as land with at least two mobile homes or mobile home lots, or adjacent land owned by the same person, according to the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, which runs the registry.
Only mobile homes that meet the statutory definition can be on the registry.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Angela Arsenault, D-Williston, said in a Jan. 12 House Committee on General and Housing meeting that she began looking into the issue when constituents reached out. Some residents of Williston Woods, a 55 years and up community made up of mobile homes, couldn’t access infrastructure grants because their properties didn’t meet the Vermont definition of mobile home park.
Some of the community’s lots are owned by individual landowners, with the rest controlled by a co-op. Only the co-op properties were considered part of a mobile home park legally, so the individual owners weren’t eligible for the repairs grant.
Arsenault and co-sponsor Rep. Curt Taylor, D-Colchester, chair of Vermont’s Mobile Home Task Force, decided to visit the community. They found no visible difference between the two sections and felt they should both be eligible for the funding.
“The folks who were left out of these opportunities are squarely within the group of people I believe these assistance programs want to help, want to cover,” said Arsenault in committee. “Williston Woods is a (U.S. Department.of Housing and Urban Development)-recognized senior living community with income restrictions, and it is just right in that demographic of folks who really should be qualifying for the various assistance programs.”
Taylor said in an interview the proposed changes would give people who own just one mobile home more access to loans and grants.
“Most mobile home parks have infrastructure difficulties that they need to address like wastewater and drinking water and things like that,” Taylor said. “They could use state help or help from other organizations that sometimes say, ‘If you’re not in the registry, we don’t offer you a loan or grant.’”
The registry itself is merely data and not meant to be used to determine a community’s eligibility for grants and funding, according to Arthur Hamlin, the state commerce agency’s mobile home parks housing program coordinator.
“It’s informational. It’s not a license or a permit of any kind,” said Hamlin. “But we’re required by the state park law to have all the park owners register their parks with us in September each year and keep a registry database of the parks and periodically publish information, reports or park listings on our website.”
The bill is not the only recent attention mobile homes have received from the Legislature. This past summer, legislators in the House set up the task force Taylor now chairs. The goal was to address and produce a report about the ever-changing issues mobile home owners face in Vermont.
“It was kind of to get as much information as possible together and understand how motorhomes work in Vermont, what their status is and how many there are, how many are in parks, what their needs are, what data is available on them,” Taylor said.
When catastrophic floods hit the state last summer, the task force was forced to pivot and consider flood resiliency plans, such as repairing culverts and levees, creating buffer zones with vegetation or looking at how flood-prone land is zoned. Members are working on a report to put out their findings.
“We’re now writing up the report like crazy and hope to have it out in a couple of weeks,” said Taylor.
If H.618 is passed, it will go into effect July 1,. Arsenault acknowledges the minute details being changed in the definition but emphasized the impact it could have on her constituents.
“I’ve been mistakenly saying it’s a really little bill (when it) could have a really substantial and wonderful impact for members of my community,” she said.
The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
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Categories: Housing, Legislation, State Government
Many of the mobile home parks in VT are in such a state of deterioration and decay that they rival the condition of dwellings within the slums of India. Some have remained in operation without potable water, and others with flagrant sanitation & health violations that ought to immediately trigger a property being condemned. Yet the towns/cities/ & state have turned a blind eye and instead allowed continued occupancy whilst health codes are ignored & slum lords, and almost certainly health “inspectors”, are rewarded.
One need merely to take a drive along Vermont’s corridor 7 in Pownal to witness first-hand the highly visible dilapidated, disgusting, and disgraceful conditions that have housed Vermont’s largely white, low-income citizens for many decades. While the verbiage “rural poverty” was bantered about by state officials for years, they did nothing substantive with all their staffers, federal grants, & already extant laws to aid those who were forced to reside in these third-world conditions.
Now, the experts in linguistics in the legislature are set to reframe how mobile home parks are labeled & defined, as if that has been the encumbrance all along and NOT the FACT that they have been well aware all along of their constituent’s calls from these parks reporting their infants becoming covered in rat bites as they sleep, lack of adequate heat, clean water, and entire interior rooms covered with mold. Perhaps if these poor souls had been minority members are those within some imaginary “oppressed” group, help might have been forthcoming. But they were not, for the most part – they were and are just poor “white folk”.
If you ever want to learn the true meaning of “deplorables”, turn not to the green-eyed monster Hillary Clinton but to the selectboard members of Pownal, their appointed health officer(s), and the former selectboard chair and now duly crowned state legislator of that area, Mr. Nelson Brownell. Mr. Brownell – who also held the paid position of zoning administrator during his tenure, allowed & enabled, over the course of many years, thousands of people to live in absolutely filthy, repugnant, and hazardous conditions – with nary a care in the world nor a blemish to his record as an “elected officer” of the people.
And in the end, these leftist politicos are focusing yet once again on semantics and jargon as opposed to solutions.
k. j. g. i knew nelson brownell in high school in bennington vermont 1963 1964 /// how is it his fault that there is a lot of poverty in pownal ///travel through vermont and you will find many places like pownal/// poverty comes from lack of jobs/// the land control laws in vermont and the big government state with the tax policy are part of the problem/// trust me there are many pownals in vermont//// question/// if you do not live there why do you care///
It’s his fault because he was head of the selectboard, and Zoning Administrator, and participated in appointing the faux town “health officer”. The primary job of the government at any level is to ensure the safety, health, and well-being of its constituency. There is no greater purpose than that – and such is especially imperative when dealing with those who are experiencing hardship.
The positions in that town were divvied out based upon political affiliation and the capacity of anyone to acquiesce to the “hierarchy” of their little created empire, follow orders, and never make waves were imperative – in the manner many municipalities are managed – or should I specify mismanaged. However, that never made it ethical and such has merely been but a steppingstone for the massive calamity we all now are experiencing in government.
Why do I “care”? For two reasons: I don’t appreciate people who capitalize on others’ misfortunes for monetary or political reasons, and I did once live there & held a seat on the Planning Commission for years. Therefore, I witnessed directly what I have recounted…as well as much, much more.
As far as my own high school days back in the 1970’s, I can get dozens of individuals who knew me as well to act as character witnesses, but then again, I have made it a point not to exploit those of lesser means.
“The primary job of the government at any level is to ensure the safety, health, and well-being of its constituency. ”
I disagree. The only legitimate role of government is to protect liberty of the people to provide for their own safety, health and well-being.
The AOE considers any student that lives in a trailer park homeless. Ask those families if they think they’re homeless.
What an insult. The homelessness industrial complex is real.
Hmmmmmm…..you’re paying taxes to this government on a federal, state, and local level to protect your liberty? Reagan stated that government’s first duty is to protect the people….. Your liberty is innate, given by God not man, & YOU must protect it against a government that has been long planning and is now set to limit and control your every move. The current government is remiss in their duty, rogue, and bent upon complete & total control. Of you. Of your family. Of all you thought you owned.
k. j. g. you were on the planning commission/// you were planning other peoples property/// so you believe you should control other people property through a government control process/// your mind works in two directions/// it is okay when your are in control///
The people of Pownal voted for zoning and it was passed prior to my residing there. That is how our form of representational democracy works in this country. Once it was passed, the town has the obligation to enforce it. However, health & safety-related issues have NOTHING to do with zoning – and those state/county/town regulations must be enforced for the protection of the citizenry. To not do so imperils the health, the safety, and the lives of the citizens. Further, we live, or at least we did recently live in a nation governed by the rule of law. Nelson Brownell is not now & was not ever above the rule of law. Your friend is but a typical politico who has sought to advance his personal political power and financial status.
Hate it when flatlanders come in, become part of big gubmint, and want to change the way we Vermonters have lived for generations.
k. j.. g. do not put words out there are not true//// i never said nelson brownell was my friend///zoning is government control of private property/// this is why democracy steals private property/// you voted for your own
demise///
k. j. g. some day when you are driving on rt 7 in pownal and not looking at bad trailers///there is a barn on rt 7 that sells pumpkins in the fall/// stop by and buy some maple products/// if you are nice to the owner he may take you up to his sugar house and show how maple products are made/// it will give you a chance to get off the key board///fresh air is good for you
I’ve been to the Armstrong farm dozens of times as again I resided, unfortunately from my stance, in that town for many years. The fact that the farm is there however, doesn’t remove the legal responsibility from either Pownal & its agents (Nelson Brownell & associated cronies) and the state of VT in having enabled thousands of residents over time to live in abject squalor amidst health condition & Vermont state/town code violations that rival third world countries.
1.) And again – the residents of the town of Pownal voted for zoning before I ever moved there.
2.) State and County & town laws that govern health, safety, and sanitation have nothing to do with “zoning”. ALL areas of the USA are regulated by health/safety codes/laws including Woodford & Searsburg. They are extant everywhere & laws need to be enforced – not selectively enforced. That is the rule of law across the country.
Oh and Chris? And I hate it when youngsters have been indoctrinated to believe that Communism/Marxism/socialism want to change the way the USA has been set up as a free Constitutional Republic & want to change things?
Posting & fleeing again? Not only too cowardly to post your given name but too cowardly to engage? That’s awfully childlike unbefitting a “professional” of your purported caliber……..
k. j. g. thank you for your visit to the farm/// next time try getting a ride up the mountain on the four wheel drive truck///this will put some excitement in your life///
Believe me, since you don’t know me, I need no further “excitement” in my life. Watching my entire country being devoured by totalitarianism or Communism or whatever anyone wishes to term it in the moment is enough “stimulation” for me at the moment. No matter, Nelson Brownell – much like the rest of his comrades in Montpelier – has not served the people of the state of VT as he was obligated to.
rule of law george bush sr. /// we will forge a new world order/// how well did that work out///
??? The entire US government that you live & presumably have lived under for your entire life is based upon a system of law & order. No, neither you nor I nor Nelson Brownell who voluntarily ran for Chair of the Pownal Select Board, took an oath to serve & protect the citizenry, who voluntarily accepted a taxpayer-funded paid position to be “zoning administrator”, who then took a similar oath as a member of the legislature – has the DUTY & OBLIGATION to serve & protect the people. He asked for it. He got it. He has largely been remiss in doing so.
It would be nice to know, for context sake, how many mobilehome parks are under control of the Vermont Land Trust? I dealt with VLT when attempting to sell my father’s mobilehome in a park over a decade ago. It was a battle of bureucratic nonsense vs. common sense. I eventually checkmated their ignornant posturing and the sale went through with the egg sliding off their faces. In my experience, prior to VLT involvement, mobilehome parks were nice, pleasant, close-knit communities. Enter the State, their minions with clipboards and marching orders, and the parks slid into same condition as other Section-8 apartment complexes and “affordable housing” zoos.
k. j. g. keep up the good work saving the country/// law and order/// tell that to the clinton crime family/// the bush crime family and there c. i. a. partners in crime/// got to wonder where the drugs are coming from///