The U.S. Senate is preparing to consider a broad housing package which includes both important opportunities for manufactured housing and language that could unintentionally cause serious harm to the industry if not corrected.

Draft legislation implementing the President’s policy on institutional investment in single‑family housing is circulating as part of this package. The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) is actively engaged with the White House, Treasury, HUD, and Congress to ensure key definitions are clarified before Senate consideration, which could begin as early as this week. Without clarification, the language could unintentionally disrupt manufactured housing production and land‑lease communities.

Here’s the immediate issue:

The institutional investor ban on single-family housing must clearly distinguish fee-simple homeownership from manufactured homes located in land‑lease communities. Absent that clarity, the legislation would have serious negative consequences for our industry.

Why this matters:

Manufactured housing is one of the nation’s most effective sources of attainable housing and land‑lease communities play a critical role in that success. Over the past five years, about 30 percent of newly constructed manufactured homes have been placed in land‑lease communities, with that share reaching as high as one‑half of all production in some years. Overly broad or imprecise language in the institutional investor ban provision could prevent 30,000 to 50,000 homes per year from reaching the market, critically harming the manufactured housing industry.

At the same time, MHI is working to ensure the housing package moving through Congress strengthens manufactured housing by reinforcing HUD as the primary regulator, modernizing the federal construction code to allow for manufactured homes without a permanent chassis, addressing the bankruptcy code, and fighting against a subsidy program intended to crowd out private investment in land-lease communities.

What can you do?

MHI is engaged and making progress—but member outreach right now is essential to reinforce our message and ensure lawmakers understand the real‑world consequences of getting this wrong.

Please take a moment to send a message to your Representative and both U.S. Senators urging them to support clear, narrowly tailored language that protects manufactured housing and allows our industry to continue delivering attainable housing at scale.

MHI has made the process easy. In just a few clicks, you can send your letter.

Instructions:

After you click on the 'Contact your Legislators Here' button below, you will be re-directed to the MHI Action Page. On the right-hand side of the page enter your name, email, and address with zip code. This will allow the system to identify your Legislators (via your physical address) and subsequently fill in the particulars of the automated e-mail. You can also read the body of the e-mail.

Together, we can help ensure the Senate housing package strengthens, rather than undermines, manufactured housing’s role in addressing the nation’s housing shortage.

Connect with us!