RHP Properties files over 130 Western NC evictions in the wake of devastating Hurricane Helene
April 2, 2025
In September of 2024, Hurricane Helene turned life as many Western North Carolinians knew it completely upside down in a matter of hours. The rising floodwaters knocked out power for days or weeks, destroyed homes, flooded businesses, and, in a few cases, swept entire downtowns away.[1] At least 106 people tragically lost their lives in North Carolina alone.[2] Thousands more became temporarily or permanently homeless or jobless[3], compounding the region’s pre-existing high housing costs and scant job opportunities. A North Carolinian myself, I heard several Asheville-area friends refer to Helene “our Katrina”, reflecting their belief that Western North Carolina will never be quite the same.
On one hand, the rupture brought about by Helene revealed new and beautiful forms of solidarity. In the crisis period following the hurricane, communities banded together in impressive ways in order to pick up the pieces. Strangers and neighbors alike cared for each other, distributing food, water, supplies, and knowledge. Many gave freely, often with zero expectation of repayment.
Unsurprisingly, this spirit of widespread generosity seems to have not reached some corporate landlords, especially the Michigan-based manufactured housing company RHP Properties. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: RHP properties has filed 131 evictions since Helene hit on September 26.[4]
This places RHP as the second highest eviction filer in the counties with available data since the hurricane hit[5], outranked only by the multifamily landlord Southwood Realty Company of Gastonia, NC.[6]
RHP’s property management decisions carry a substantial impact not only in the region, but throughout the nation as a whole. RHP is the nation’s largest private owner of manufactured housing[7], owning and/or managing nearly 80,000 home sites across 371 park communities.[8] The company has reported more than $6 billion in assets.[9] The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has categorized RHP as a private equity firm because the company raises equity from institutional investors and uses those funds to make private investments
RHP owns six parks in the Asheville area. Of the 131 evictions filed by RHP since Helene, 113 were from Wellington Estates in Arden.[10] Wellington Estates is one of the largest manufactured housing parks in Western North Carolina, hosting 441 total homes of various ages and conditions.[11] Many of the 113 filings at Wellington West were serial in nature,[12] meaning the same person received an eviction filing two or three times. Sister property Wellington West also saw seven eviction filings across its 57 sites, a household eviction rate of about one in eight.
A Citizen Times article from 2017 showed signs of Wellington Estates residents’ experiences in their community, stating that “Wellington Estates [is] full of gardens where tenants have planted roses and azaleas. There are yard ornaments and kids’ toys.”[13]
Other parks where RHP evicted residents in the past four months include Asheville’s Riverview (which had nine filings) and Homestead in Fletcher (which had two). RHP also owns Ridgeview in Asheville and River Oak in Mills River.[14]
The timing of the eviction filings is notable and heartbreaking. RHP Properties held off on filing new evictions until mid-December, at which point a new storm began: an onslaught of evictions that appears to be unceasing. Thirty seven evictions were filed just prior to Christmas, followed by 64 more in the first three weeks of January, then 30 in late February. This left dozens of tenants to face the possibility (if not the outright reality) of being thrown out of their homes with nowhere to go during the coldest months of the year. All this after living through an unspeakable tragedy just a few months prior.
Post-disaster eviction crises of this sort are especially concerning given that manufactured home communities provide affordable homes for millions of residents and are one of the last sectors of affordable housing in the United States. Across the country, they are one of the only options for seniors on fixed incomes, low-income families, immigrants, people with disabilities, veterans, and others in need of low-cost housing.[15]
It’s not clear whether the people RHP filed to evict were leasing their homes or just renting the land underneath. Even when manufactured housing residents do own their housing structure, they often cannot relocate their home, meaning investors can increase site rent prices and fees with little effect on demand. As a result, residents are often trapped and can be squeezed for every dollar. In addition, evicting residents who are unable to keep up with rising site rents can be lucrative, as residents who are forced to leave may abandon their homes or sell to the investor at a steep discount. For this reason, manufactured housing evictions can have devastating consequences.
So far we’ve only seen eviction filing data through February 21. There is a concern that in the coming months eviction filings will return to or even surpass RHP’s usual rate. In the four months leading up to Helene, RHP filed evictions at an average rate of 28 per month.[16] This was already a precarious baseline, but circumstances are now even more dire as many people in the greater Asheville region are still trying to regain their economic footing due to widespread storm-related job and wage loss.[17]
This is not the only time that RHP has come across advocates’ radar, either. A pending lawsuit has alleged that a number of community owners or managers, including RHP, engaged in price fixing by sharing competitively sensitive, non-public information about lot rental prices and occupancy with one another.[18][19] While only the courts can determine the veracity of these claims, the alleged combination of high eviction activity and systematically inflated lot rent is quite troubling.
This episode of mass eviction filing by RHP is an act of ugly corporate greed enabled by deep policy failure. An eviction moratorium should have been instituted immediately and indefinitely in every county impacted by Helene, and rent relief should be available for the long term. While it’s too late to intervene on behalf of the hundreds of Western North Carolina families who have been served eviction notices by various landlords since September, swift intervention is still needed to stop the part of the eviction crisis that is very much still looming as landlords’ post-storm goodwill dries up even further.
Despite this failure of the state to protect working class people from corporate abuse, people carry on finding new ways to support one another and work together to build power. The WNC Tenants Network is just one place where neighbors are coming together to protect one another from displacement and landlord abuse. To get involved, visit their website.
To learn more about private equity ownership of manufactured housing, visit our Manufactured Housing Tracker.[20]
Data sources and methodology
Eviction data were compiled and analyzed by Tanner Bornemann of WNC Tenants Network, a local chapter of the North Carolina Tenants Union. Data were sourced from E-Courts.
[1] https://earth.org/after-the-storm-assessing-the-environmental-damage-caused-by-hurricane-helene/
[2] https://www.ncdhhs.gov/assistance/hurricane-helene-recovery-resources/hurricane-helene-storm-related-fatalities
[3] https://www.commerce.nc.gov/news/the-lead-feed/what-we-know-about-employment-impact-of-hurricane-helene
[4] Eviction data were compiled from E-Courts and analyzed by Tanner Bornemann of the WNC Tenants Network, a local chapter of the North Carolina Tenants Union. RHP’s status of “second highest eviction filer” refers to summary ejectment filings in the Western North Carolina counties that participate in e-Courts filed between September 27, 2024 and February 21, 2025.
[5] North Carolina only has eviction data from 52 counties available in e-Courts at this time. Researchers assessed all available data from counties that received an emergency declaration from the state, minus Mecklenburg County. RHP only operates in Buncombe and Henderson Counties.
[6]E-Courts via Tanner Bornemann.
[7] https://www.rhp.com/about.html
[8] https://www.rhp.com/
[9] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/mobile-home-park-owners-blast-implausible-rent-price-fixing-class-action-2024-01-30/
[10] E-Courts via Tanner Bornemann.
[11] https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2017/05/07/mobile-home-parks-good-asheville-depends-who-you-ask/97710974/
[12] https://evictionlab.org/serial-eviction-filings/
[13] https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2017/05/07/mobile-home-parks-good-asheville-depends-who-you-ask/97710974/
[14] https://www.rhp.com/communities.html
[15] https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Private-Equity-GIants-Converge-on-Manufactured-Homes-PESP-MHAction-AFR-021419.pdf
[16] E-Courts via Tanner Bornemann.
[17] https://abc11.com/post/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-arts-community-asheville-shaken-effects/15890703/
[18] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/mobile-home-park-owners-blast-implausible-rent-price-fixing-class-action-2024-01-30/
[19] Case pending as of February 13. https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-alleges-mobile-home-community-cos.-conspired-to-raise-lot-rental-prices
[20] https://pestakeholder.org/pesp-private-equity-manufactured-housing-tracker/
