Congressman Frost introduces bill to defend manufactured home communities from Wall Street
April 8, 2026
On March 23, Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) introduced new legislation to promote affordable housing and fight back against profiteering Wall Street investors by helping residents purchase and own their parks.[1] Titled the Promoting Residential Ownership of (PRO) Manufactured Home Communities Act, the act addresses the urgent need to protect manufactured housing residents from greed-driven skyrocketing costs, hostile eviction, and unlivable conditions.[2]
The legislation aims to help residents build wealth and maintain long-term housing stability in the face of those rising costs.[3] “Manufactured housing should be an opportunity for affordable homeownership, not a profit center for Wall Street, Frost said. “To tackle the housing affordability crisis facing the nation, we must combat institutional investors having the upper hand in bidding for property. This bill gives manufactured home residents a fair shot to own their communities which will prevent eviction and keep costs low.”[4]
The PRO MHC Act, which was endorsed by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, incentivizes states to adopt and strengthen tenant opportunity to purchase (TOPA) policies that go beyond existing laws.[5] PESP has previously recommended TOPA (also known as right of first refusal) as a key mechanism for allowing residents to maintain community land control and fight the churning cycle of corporate speculation, which often sees parks flipped between investors every few years.[6]
In addition, the Act increases Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for states and localities that take measures to support resident ownership and helps pay for downpayment assistance.[7]
At a press conference announcing the bill’s introduction, Amina Kamau, a community organizer with MHAction, said that she talks every day to “people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, who own their home, but rent the land, and and when a corporation buys the land, they become the most vulnerable people in housing markets, overnight.” Kamau said that’s why this bill matters, because it “creates a real shot at resident ownership and at stability that can’t be taken away the next time the park sells.”
Over the past 20 years, manufactured home communities increasingly have gone from “mom and pop” enterprises to ownership by private equity firms, hedge funds, and large, multi-state corporations that seek to capitalize on manufactured-home owners’ unique situation. Between 2020 and 2021, institutional investors accounted for 23% of all manufactured home purchases, up from 13% between 2017-2019.[8]
Because many of the residents who occupy these communities are elderly, disabled, or on fixed incomes, they are especially vulnerable to the negative impacts of corporate investment.[9] Private equity and related investors buy a park, increase the rent in order to increase cash flow at the property and thus increase the park’s value, and then often sell it within a few years for a profit. At the same time, residents experience extreme instability amidst unaffordable rent inflation, increased evictions, and reduced maintenance and services.[10]
Frost’s home state, Florida, is home to the nation’s largest number of private equity-owned parks with 297 communities totaling over 68,000 home sites.[11] A 2024 PESP report on one private equity landlord with large numbers of Florida properties, Alden Global Capital, showcased the deep impact this sort of investor can have on residents in Florida, including over 285 eviction filings in Florida between 2021 and 2024. The issue has also received media coverage from Florida outlets.[12]
While this legislation faces an uphill legal battle under a Republican-controlled Congress, it represents a groundbreaking attempt at using creative legal tools to protect this crucial form of affordable housing supply. PESP researchers hope that this legislation sparks similar attempts to beef up legal protections for tenants and resident owners at the federal level.
[1] https://frost.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-frost-leads-fight-against-wall-street-to-defend-affordable-housing-communities
[2] https://frost.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-frost-leads-fight-against-wall-street-to-defend-affordable-housing-communities
[3] https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/03/20/rep-frost-backed-act-aims-to-help-residents-own-their-manufactured-home-communities/
[4]https://frost.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-frost-leads-fight-against-wall-street-to-defend-affordable-housing-communities
[5] https://frost.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-frost-leads-fight-against-wall-street-to-defend-affordable-housing-communities
[6] https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/PESP-Report-Tools-for-Tackling-Corporate-Landlords-3-Pro-Competitive-Reforms-December-2023.pdf
[7] https://frost.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-frost-leads-fight-against-wall-street-to-defend-affordable-housing-communities
[8]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/us/mobile-home-park-ownership-costs.html#:~:text=Real%20Capital%20Analytics%2C%20a%20market,among%20the%20country%27s%20largest%20landlords.
[9] https://pestakeholder.org/pesp-private-equity-manufactured-housing-tracker/
[10] https://pestakeholder.org/pesp-private-equity-manufactured-housing-tracker/
[11] https://pestakeholder.org/pesp-private-equity-manufactured-housing-tracker/
[12]https://www.wusf.org/economy-business/2025-07-30/not-so-forever-home-how-florida-manufactured-home-parks-growing-unaffordable
