Why do so many Americans live in mobile homes?
An estimated 20 million Americans live in mobile homes, according to new Census figures. How did this become the cheap housing of choice for so many people?
"From the state where 20% of our homes are mobile 'cause that's how we roll, I'm Brooke Mosteller, Miss South Carolina."
Not the usual jaunty PR message you expect to hear at Miss America. And Mosteller caused a minor stormfor presenting what some South Carolina natives felt was a negative slight on the state.
A few days after her comments, US Census figures confirmed that her state did indeed have the highest proportion of mobile homes - also known as trailers or manufactured housing - though the figure is closer to 18% than 20%.
Mobile homes have a huge image problem in the US, where in many minds they are shorthand for poverty. But how accurate is this perception?
Comparing the top 10 mobile home states with the 10 most deprived states suggests a loose correlation. South Carolina is not among the 10 poorest by income, but there are eight states, all southern, that appear in both lists.
"Not everyone who lives in a trailer park is poor," says Charles Becker, a professor of economics at Duke University, and one of a handful of academics nationwide who has extensively studied the subject.
"And there are parts of the country, like Michigan, where living in a mobile home community doesn't have the stigma it does in the south. You also have retirement communities in Florida where people aren't poor at all."
Who lives in mobile homes
*.There are 8.5m homes and about 20m people
*.57% of household heads in full employment, 23% retired
*.Household income half the national average
*.In late 1990s, nearly 400,000 new manufactured homes sold a year, down to 55,000 now
*.70% of all new single family homes sold for under $125,000 are manufactured
Source: US Census, Manufactured Housing Institute
Mobile homes make up 6.4% of the US housing sector and there are 8.5m of them, down slightly on 2011, according to the US Census. The number of occupants is not recorded but it's estimated to total about 20 million.
According to the Manufactured Housing Institute, about 57% of the heads of mobile home households are in full employment and another 23% are retired. But the household median income is only a little over half the national average.
West Virginia has the third highest proportion of trailers in the US. And in the rolling hills near the Shenandoah River, amid the country roads made famous by John Denver's signature song, there are any number of mobile home parks, usually tucked away from view, up the hill or round a corner.
The 22 units at Oak Haven Mobile Home Park outside Martinsburg are neatly arranged, 25ft apart, nestled in a dip just the other side of Needy Road from the Bakers Height Baptist Church, which stands alone on a wide expanse of green fields.
The homes don't look like trailers in the conventional sense and inside they're spacious with 2-3 bedrooms, a fitted washer and dryer, two bathrooms including an oval tub, and an island breakfast bar in the kitchen.
For Michael Breeden, 27, picking a mobile rather than fixed home a year ago was all about freedom. "I know I could have got a [foreclosed] house if I wanted to but we can move this to where we want and if [house-owners] want to move they're stuck."
It's been a largely happy 12 months in the 80ft home for his 23-year-old girlfriend Samantha, their 17-month-old baby Kelli Lynn and Breeden's mother, Mary McGee.
It's quieter and safer than their previous rented home but it's a stepping stone - they have a "five-year plan" which involves buying some land and then moving the home, at a cost of about $2,500 (£1,560), into the mountains, "where there's a view".
Breeden, who works at a printing plant nearby, pays the park owner $325 a month for lot rental, rubbish collection and water supply. There's also $150 to pay monthly for electricity, $60 property tax, and $220 to Samantha's parents who lent them the $16,000 (£10,000) to buy the home.
Several of Breeden's neighbours say how much they enjoy the tranquillity of Oak Haven. The site was built in 1959 by Frank Rouss, who cleared all the oak trees away and built 28 trailers on the site, while also raising 11 children.
Most of the homes here are rented and there is not a single piece of rubbish discarded anywhere, because the rules are strictly observed - no music outside the homes and nothing left on the lawns.
LifeatOak Haven
"It's very quiet and always clean," says bartender Sue Bobbitt (above left with partner John Dimmick), who moved in a month ago. "That's one of the main things I was looking for. We've lost a lot of space because I had a three-level townhouse but there are no parking problems." They say they'll stay in their first mobile home, which is rented, for 1-2 years and hope to buy a place in the countryside. Mobile? "Perhaps."
"From the state where 20% of our homes are mobile 'cause that's how we roll, I'm Brooke Mosteller, Miss South Carolina."
Not the usual jaunty PR message you expect to hear at Miss America. And Mosteller caused a minor stormfor presenting what some South Carolina natives felt was a negative slight on the state.
A few days after her comments, US Census figures confirmed that her state did indeed have the highest proportion of mobile homes - also known as trailers or manufactured housing - though the figure is closer to 18% than 20%.
Mobile homes have a huge image problem in the US, where in many minds they are shorthand for poverty. But how accurate is this perception?
Comparing the top 10 mobile home states with the 10 most deprived states suggests a loose correlation. South Carolina is not among the 10 poorest by income, but there are eight states, all southern, that appear in both lists.
"Not everyone who lives in a trailer park is poor," says Charles Becker, a professor of economics at Duke University, and one of a handful of academics nationwide who has extensively studied the subject.
"And there are parts of the country, like Michigan, where living in a mobile home community doesn't have the stigma it does in the south. You also have retirement communities in Florida where people aren't poor at all."
Who lives in mobile homes
*.There are 8.5m homes and about 20m people
*.57% of household heads in full employment, 23% retired
*.Household income half the national average
*.In late 1990s, nearly 400,000 new manufactured homes sold a year, down to 55,000 now
*.70% of all new single family homes sold for under $125,000 are manufactured
Source: US Census, Manufactured Housing Institute
Mobile homes make up 6.4% of the US housing sector and there are 8.5m of them, down slightly on 2011, according to the US Census. The number of occupants is not recorded but it's estimated to total about 20 million.
According to the Manufactured Housing Institute, about 57% of the heads of mobile home households are in full employment and another 23% are retired. But the household median income is only a little over half the national average.
West Virginia has the third highest proportion of trailers in the US. And in the rolling hills near the Shenandoah River, amid the country roads made famous by John Denver's signature song, there are any number of mobile home parks, usually tucked away from view, up the hill or round a corner.
The 22 units at Oak Haven Mobile Home Park outside Martinsburg are neatly arranged, 25ft apart, nestled in a dip just the other side of Needy Road from the Bakers Height Baptist Church, which stands alone on a wide expanse of green fields.
The homes don't look like trailers in the conventional sense and inside they're spacious with 2-3 bedrooms, a fitted washer and dryer, two bathrooms including an oval tub, and an island breakfast bar in the kitchen.
For Michael Breeden, 27, picking a mobile rather than fixed home a year ago was all about freedom. "I know I could have got a [foreclosed] house if I wanted to but we can move this to where we want and if [house-owners] want to move they're stuck."
It's been a largely happy 12 months in the 80ft home for his 23-year-old girlfriend Samantha, their 17-month-old baby Kelli Lynn and Breeden's mother, Mary McGee.
It's quieter and safer than their previous rented home but it's a stepping stone - they have a "five-year plan" which involves buying some land and then moving the home, at a cost of about $2,500 (£1,560), into the mountains, "where there's a view".
Breeden, who works at a printing plant nearby, pays the park owner $325 a month for lot rental, rubbish collection and water supply. There's also $150 to pay monthly for electricity, $60 property tax, and $220 to Samantha's parents who lent them the $16,000 (£10,000) to buy the home.
Several of Breeden's neighbours say how much they enjoy the tranquillity of Oak Haven. The site was built in 1959 by Frank Rouss, who cleared all the oak trees away and built 28 trailers on the site, while also raising 11 children.
Most of the homes here are rented and there is not a single piece of rubbish discarded anywhere, because the rules are strictly observed - no music outside the homes and nothing left on the lawns.
LifeatOak Haven
"It's very quiet and always clean," says bartender Sue Bobbitt (above left with partner John Dimmick), who moved in a month ago. "That's one of the main things I was looking for. We've lost a lot of space because I had a three-level townhouse but there are no parking problems." They say they'll stay in their first mobile home, which is rented, for 1-2 years and hope to buy a place in the countryside. Mobile? "Perhaps."
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