OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
If you are an Oregon Manufactured Home Park or Marina resident who owns their home, but rents the space or slip in which your home is located, then we are here for you.
OSTA is your support network, a trusted source of information about your rights, and your advocate for more secure housing through improved legislation.
Through these efforts and initiatives, we enhance your quality of life.
OSTA is a nonprofit, grassroots organization that seeks direction from members, avoiding a top-down approach, regarding decision-making on critical issues affecting members’ lifestyle choices, quality of life, and rights as residents in manufactured housing and floating home communities.
OSTA works to provide an expanding array of programs, information, and services to its members. It is an organization focused, not only on protecting the rights of homeowners as residents in parks and marinas but an organization that supports all aspects of manufactured and floating home living.
To enable this to happen we rely on members, teams, and colleagues, across the state who support this common vision. This work requires time, investment, and dedication to serve our 80,000+ residents and we rely solely on memberships and donations to achieve our goals.
Join OSTA Link
https://oregontenants.com/membership-account/membership-levels/
OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
OSTA Update: Cash Cows Stampede in Salem!
For the video version of this program go to: https://youtu.be/2arF0Y1iogg?si=1zMLaSggl8qwSMWa
This is a special Thank You to everyone who took part in Monday's hearing in Salem at the Oregon State Capitol. You stood up and it happened. Because you, the Oregon State Tenants Association (OSTA) made waves during the kickoff hearing of House Bill HB 3054.
Your willingness to fill the testimony rooms to overflowing and don cow hats is how we fight for tenant rights. You'll hear about our colorful, energetic gathering and the remarkable strides we've made with this groundbreaking legislation, the first of its kind to progress this far in years. We'll explore the potential impact of the CPI cost cap and the necessary amendments on the horizon. What you did is a shining example of grassroots activism at its finest, punctuated by moments of camaraderie and determination.
One highlight is the surprising lengths some will go to to silence tenants. From a bizarre offer in Forest Grove, Oregon, where tenants were tempted with $26 annually to stay out of advocacy activities, to broader questions of industry self-regulation, our conversation is both eye-opening and empowering. Thank you to all who stood up and made a difference.
If you took pictures and want to share them, send them to us. Especially any of us in the "cow hats." We will keep you posted.
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Comments or Questions for the Podcast
Email: bbateman@oregontenants.com
Copyright OSTA2045,2025 Not for rebroadcast w/o express written permission. Please share and download for educational purposes with attribution.
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If we were going to put a headline to yesterday, it would be Cash Cow's Stampede in Salem. Join us. Hi everybody, I'm Bill Bateman, part of the team here at Oregon State Tenants Association, or OSTA as we like to call it, and yesterday. I just have to say a giant thank you to each of you. It's folks like you who got up, came out, got involved that made yesterday such a success. Yesterday in Salem was the first hearing of House Bill HB 3054. We had a great turnout. We overflowed into one of the overflow hearing rooms, we had testimony, we had all kinds of presentations, we had people in cow hats, we had a lot of good things happening and, by the way, if you were one of the people who took the effort to attend and I know it's difficult I want to say again a personal thank you to each of you who came out. If you happen to take any pictures yesterday, I've got two things I'd like to ask you to do. First, could you send us some photos you're willing to share, because we're going to put them in our newsletter and we're going to use them with or without your name? Please tell us what you wish, with or without your name, in relation to building interest in the event. Also, if you have pictures, share them on Facebook, share them on Instagram, post them in your church bulletin board. Let folks know what's going on, because this is how we got to where we were.
Speaker 1:You have to stop and realize this is the first time that legislation has actually gotten this far in. I want to say four to five years Fact. Check me if you will and correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it's in four years. There's been a lot of false starts, a lot of things gonna, gonna, gonna. This is the first time. It's out the gate. It's not going to be voted on tomorrow. There's going to be further discussion, and that's a good thing. There's going to have to probably be some amendments made to that, but that's legislation.
Speaker 1:The information I'm hearing and this is just hearsay, not a guarantee but that the CPI cost cap is looking pretty good. So that's part one of this announcement. Let's see what else I got here. Ah, yes, one other thing I'm hearing a lot of is that the owners, especially the local owners and again, I don't want to take them to the woodshed as much as I do, the corporate entities that are doing such price gouging Folks are saying you know, there's only one or two bad apples.
Speaker 1:My thought has been and this is the same in any organization, I don't care who you are or what you're doing. If you're talking about any organization, there's only one or two bad apples. Okay, you're the organization, police it Clean up your own house. If you clean up your own act, we don't have to. The fact that this has been going on for years, that it's become this level of a problem, that we have a literal stampede of people acting and asking and pressuring to get this problem resolved. And my favorite bit from yesterday, my favorite bit of information I'm sharing and it ties into the point I'm trying to make Police your own house, clean up your own mess.
Speaker 1:A park Forest Grove, oregon, contacted me and said hey, we just got our rent increase, but part of the rent increase and you're going to like this. If you're not familiar with manufactured homes, each year you get a notice that in a certain amount of time, by law good job you're going to get a rent increase of X amount. Usually it's going to be 10% or less. This had a little special add-on to it. We'll give you $26 a year if you don't participate in things like yesterday's event, if you don't protest, if you don't contact the media, if you don't write to the newspaper, in other words, if you give up your basic constitutional rights, we'll give you $26. Just leave that on the dresser. So let's look at this $26 offer If you have. In my park there are 70 units. So you multiply 70 times 26. That's $1,800 a month. Now, 12 months in a year takes us about to $21,000 a year.
Speaker 1:But this management company doesn't manage one park. They manage hundreds of parks. Let's look at how many parks. Let's say 10. For 10 parks to do this, it's going to cost them $219,000 approximately, plus or minus a few bucks. That's an awful lot of infrastructure repair. That's a lot of maintenance. That's a lot of improvements. That's a lot of positive additions to the home communities that could be done. Instead of trying to shut people up, folks, you are making a difference Again.
Speaker 1:The point of this whole thing is to say yesterday was a resounding success. We got our message out loud and clear. Now's not the time to sit down and put your feet up. Now the actual work begins. We're going to be contacting those on the committee and hoping to bring them to our point of view. We're going to do that in a good, positive way, like I talked about, and we're going to now look at if it gets out of the House. It's going to go to the Senate and yesterday I should point out that from our area, senator Golden was there and testified in favor of the bill.
Speaker 1:So this OSTA update concludes with a genuine and heartfelt thank you from me and the people here at Osta to all of you. We're all volunteers. I don't get paid, they don't get paid, you don't get paid. We are working for the common good of our community. Thank you for your hard work. You did it. That shows you what we can do when we all band together. Let's keep doing it. Let's organize our parks. Let's join Osta. Let's make sure we are communicating and keeping our facts straight and our powder dry. So look out the window. It's still snowing at my house, so please stay warm, be safe, careful on that ice out there. Come on back More Osta updates as the information comes available. Thank you.
