Manufactured home park residents are at extreme risk of heat deaths

Will Brookfield end YES! Communities’ window A/C ban?

A 2-year investigation by National Public Radio (NPR), tracking deaths from heat, found that residents manufactured home parks are among the most at risk.  

The Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University found that manufactured home residents in Maricopa County, Arizona, are six to eight times more likely to die from heat-related issues than residents in traditional housing. While manufactured homes account for just 5% of the housing in Maricopa County, people who live in manufactured homes account for 30% to 40% of indoor heat deaths. 

NPR noted that there are several reasons for this, including the age and condition of most manufactured homes, how they are financed, and the fact that people living in manufactured homes are more likely to be dealing with other financial and health issues. Older people and those with conditions such as diabetes or heart disease are especially at risk.

The poor condition of many homes can contribute to sky-high electric bills for some residents, and manufactured home residents are often not eligible for financial assistance to pay their bills if the park owner has the account and bills the individual homeowners. 

Air conditioning saves lives.

The ASU research center found that manufactured home residents who died from heat were twice as likely to NOT have had air conditioning as victims who died in other kinds of homes. 

The center’s research made officials in Arizona more aware of the heightened risks for manufactured home residents and led them to take some steps to address that risk. One of those steps was that in 2024, the Arizona legislature passed a law,and Governor Katie Hobbs signed it as an emergency action so it could immediately go into effect, guaranteeing manufactured home park residents the right to install cooling measures, such as window air conditioning units. 

Researchers at the ASU center said that when they were interviewing manufactured home residents, “People were saying that their landlords were stopping them from putting in window air-conditioning units in the front of their houses because they could be seen from the street.” 

“It doesn’t make any sense to say, in Arizona, that you can’t put this [window A/C units] in your home,” the center’s director said. The new state law prohibits park owners from banning window A/C units. 

Will Brookfield allow YES! Communities residents to have window air conditioners in their homes?

The private equity company Brookfield recently acquired YES! Communities, one of the largest owners of manufactured home parks in the U.S., with about 270 parks and over 80,000 home sites.

There have been news reports over the last few years, during some of the hottest summers on record, that YES! Communities threatened residents with lease violations and being forced out of their homes if they didn’t remove window air conditioning units.

YES! Communities’ standard Community Guidelines for its parks include a provision that strictly prohibits window air conditioners. Tenants are instructed to sign these guidelines along with their lease

From Brookfield’s Guidelines for Community Living, Section 7.H

According to YES! Communities’ website, these Community Guidelines are in effect at its 3 parks in Arizona – Glendale West, Mountain Gate, and Rosewood Estates.  

A letter to residents of Countryside Village in South Bend, Indiana in June 2025, read, “If you have window A/C units you must remove them. After three violations, evictions can and will be filed.”

Many YES! Communities residents own their homes but pay lot rent to YES!, and many of their homes are older and don’t have central air.

“I think it’s a little unfair,” said one Countryside Village resident, who has central A/C but was concerned for his neighbors. “I think they’re putting a lot of pressure on people unfairly, especially a lot of the longtime residents that are on fixed incomes. They can’t afford to just go buy a whole brand-new air conditioner unit.”

Another news story reported about similar practices at YES! Communities’ Springfield Meadows park in San Antonio, Texas.  Management sent a “site inspections” email to residents, saying “as a reminder we do not allow window units in our community.” A resident said that management doesn’t want A/C window units for aesthetic reasons, that they don’t want units that “stick out.”

“We have to sit in front of the fan,” the resident who lives with her two children said, “I don’t wanna cause any problems, all I want is my window unit so it can be comfortable in our home.” San Antonio has an average high of 95 degrees in July and August.

A Countryside Village resident told a reporter, “I know that they want to make the park look nicer, but they’re trying to do it at the expense of peoples’ health. And that’s not right.”

Residents have raised concerns that not having air conditioning could be dangerous, especially for people with health conditions. 

“We’ve got elderly people that live in here, sick people that live in here, and they could die,” one Countryside Village resident in Indiana said. “I mean, some people that’s never lived in a trailer, they don’t understand how hot. It’s like living in a tin can.”

One Army veteran and senior citizen who has lived at Countryside Village for more than 20 years needs an oxygen tank and has been struggling to breathe. He had to go to the emergency room this summer, the day after speaking to a reporter. “I have a right to life. It seems like they’re just saying, well, we don’t care about your life,” he said. 

There was also a news story about YES! Communities engaging in similar practices in Five Seasons in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where one resident was worried about her husband. “If he gets too hot, he could go into seizures, and it can really harm him,” she said.

A resident of Ashli Oaks in Denton, Texas, where YES! Communities has enforced the same policy, told a reporter, “I’m on disability, I’ve got multiple sclerosis and diabetes, so I can’t regulate my body temperature as well as everyone else, and my living room is 103 degrees right now.”