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.
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OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
OSTA Update HB3054A is out of Committee
The fight for mobile home residents' rights hangs by a thread in Oregon as HB 3054 narrowly passed the House Housing Committee on a straight party-line vote. Had just one Democrat voted differently, the bill would have failed, highlighting the precarious position of tenant protections in manufactured housing communities.
Behind these legislative battles are real people facing increasingly aggressive tactics from park owners and management companies. From arbitrary demands to remove decade-old landscaping to the elimination of promised amenities like laundry facilities, residents across Oregon report troubling patterns of overreach that threaten their security and quality of life. Most alarming are situations like the one developing in Forest Grove, where allegations of assault and intoxicated threats have created an atmosphere of fear among community members.
These challenges underscore why OSTA (Oregon State Tenants Association) continues advocating for stronger protections. Far too often, park owners implement unilateral rule changes or ignore infrastructure problems like flooding with apparent impunity, believing residents don't know their rights under Oregon law. But knowledge is power, and as HB 3054 A moves to the House floor, now is the critical moment for residents and allies to make their voices heard. Contact your representatives today – thank those who support fair housing protections and respectfully engage with those who oppose them. Your home and community depend on it.
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Well, hi everybody. This is Bill Bateman from OSTA with another OSTA update, and I promised I would be keeping everyone up to date with the status of the bill as soon as that information became available. And by golly, here we are again. Hb 3054, as amended, passed out of the House Housing Committee on Monday afternoon on a straight party line vote. Seven Democrats gave yes votes, five Republicans gave no votes. It's important to notice that if only one Democrat had voted no, the result would have been a tie vote and the bill would have failed. That's how close these margins are. The Republicans on the committee did ask for a subsequent referral that, if the bill does pass out of the full House to Ways and Means. That means the Republicans think the bill would have some negative impact on the state budget. Personally, I'm not quite sure what they're thinking. It could be just a procedural roadblock. What happens next? Well, the bill is going to be reprinted as 3054A and will go to the House floor. If you reach out, please send appropriate thank yous or what the heck's as appropriate. Let's thank the people who are supporting us and let's politely remind those who are against us that we are watching and we want to see their logic. We'd like to get more information on why they're acting the way they are. So that's what's going on as far as HB 3054 at this hour. It's changing constantly. It will be time again to send out emails, to send out postcards, to do whatever you can to get your friends and neighbors involved and aware. Way too often, way too often, these things happen in a very small microcosm. I've talked to people in my own neighborhood and they what bill Dummy? You live in a mobile home park. Come on, what do you mean? What, bill? It's serious business. Knowledge and information are the things that are going to keep the wheels greased, keep the wheels turning. Wheels greased, keep the wheels turning. Now the reason I'm kind of on this. We get information from one of our board members who is also an attorney. He is not an OSTA attorney, but he is an attorney who is on our board and he keeps us up to date with things going on around the state. So let's look at some of these. You won't believe this.
Speaker 1:First of all, new park owners decided the Arborvitae plants needed to go. They've been there about 10 years, 90.412 waived any objections, and these were 10 to 12 feet high. The park tells the tenant. Well, you can't have those for aesthetic purposes and the tenants must remove them. Most tenants are complying out of fear. There are no claims by anyone about it being hazardous. This just appears to be a change in the park rule. The park does not do the 90.610 process. One tenant refuses, the park threatens to evict them. Now that's a violation of 93.75,. So the Tenant says I'll trim them. Park says must be no more than five feet. The tenant hires an arborist and the arborist says if you cut them that much they're going to die. Park is informed of this but the park says cut them down or we will evict you.
Speaker 1:Here's another one. Park has poor to no storm drainage. In the past a tenant whose lot got flooded complained, so the park gave him a sump pump. Tenant had to install that pump and supply the electricity at their own expense. Until recently that took care of it basically, but now it's no longer working. Other tenants are starting to have flooding issues too. Park refuses to do anything, saying it's not their problem.
Speaker 1:And number three tenant moves into the park. The park makes a bargain, signs a rental contract to rent a space in the park with a laundry facility. The tenant is paying the rental value for a park with these facility. The park unilaterally took out the laundry facility. That's a violation of 9262.2, as well as 9375 and 9610. The park refuses to discuss replacing or returning the washers and dryers. This is a unilateral change in the bargain, a breach and unlawful change in the rental contract. It's also a unilateral change in the park rules.
Speaker 1:These are just three reasons. We're seeing increasing problems because of management in the parks. Some people are saying this is retaliation. Now, these are just three examples of some of the violations or egregious behavior you see around the state of Oregon by park management. Most of the time they do them, they think, with impunity, because people don't know the rules, don't know the law. That's why I quoted the section of the rental code and there are some very strong sanctions. They're not expensive, they're not going to get fined $10,000, but it is possible to get free rent when they start getting way off the reservation. So these are just three of the more flagrant examples of problems that just seem to keep getting worse.
Speaker 1:For our fourth, we're going to look up to Forest Grove, oregon, and that's going to be the subject of a special segment I'm going to be doing in my next episode. There are allegations of assault, there are allegations of drunken threats being made. There's all kinds of allegations happening. So we're going to be contacting officials in that area the police department, the sheriff's department to find out what we can and see if there's anything that we can do to get things under control. People shouldn't have to live like this and I think that's one of our responsibilities at OSTA.
Speaker 1:So stay tuned. We're coming in with a special report. Please stay tuned for that. Please thank your representatives if they supported you. If yours did not reach out to them politely and ask them what you can do to help change their mind, perhaps remind them that you did kind of vote for them and it is kind of their responsibility to represent the will of the people. Stuff like that and tune in as we get new information. We'll be keeping you up to date on the very latest. So until next time. This is Bill Bateman for OSTA. Be safe, be good to each other. Goodbye for now. No-transcript.
