How Disaster Policies Lead to Manufactured Housing Policy Disasters

Mobile and manufactured housing communities (MHCs) are often some of the hardest hit by flooding disasters, and the disaster vulnerability of this housing type stems from a confluence of titling, financing, and flood mitigation policies. These policies have centered single-family real property homes while explicitly excluding MHC homeowners—over time pushing these communities into floodplains and barring them from mitigation or recovery mechanisms.

This webinar will utilize recent geospatial data from a 12-county sample in Colorado to shed light on the policies that create disproportionate flood exposure and exacerbate barriers to flood recovery, basic home maintenance, and weatherization in MHCs. The webinar will conclude with a discussion about potential policy interventions at the state, local, and federal level.

Speakers

Dani Slabaugh, PhD MLA (they/them), is a community-based researcher based at the University of Colorado Denver utilizing qualitative, quantitative, and geospatial methods to further climate and environmental justice goals in planning and public policy. Their background in mutual aid disaster recovery after multiple hurricane and flood events led them to pursue a PhD focused on climate justice research in collaboration with mobile home park resident activists and community leaders in Colorado. Their work centers impacted communities’ visions of a just and thriving climate future through transformative change.

Rachel Siegel is a senior officer with The Pew Charitable Trust’s housing policy initiative, conducting original research and analysis on the availability, safety, and affordability of mortgages and on alternative financial arrangements for purchasing manufactured homes and other low-cost forms of housing. She has also worked on Pew’s consumer banking and finance teams focusing on overdraft, prepaid cards, and mobile payments. Siegel holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Vermont and a master’s in economics from Boston University.