TAMPA, Fla. — Natasha Velasco juggles raising her family with small children and the tasks involved in maintaining her mobile home.

“This is my husband’s work clothes,” she said. “I wash and dry regularly because I have a big family.”

Velasco says the cost of doing so has gone up since the park’s owner now adds water to their bill.

“It costs a lot to wash clothes and take showers,” she said.

She says they also had three rent hikes for their lot since new management took over.

“At first, it was at $795," Velasco said. "Then they bumped it to $843 within a few months, and then in August, they bumped it up again."

Velasco said her family couldn’t finance a regular home and chose to purchase a manufactured home as an affordable option.  

“For me, having a big family was something that was reasonable for me and my husband, as he works and not me, to turn to have a steady home for my family,” she said.

According to the National Manufactured Homeowners Association, 17 million people in the United States live in manufactured homes, and nearly 43% live in privately owned land-lease communities.

Information from the NMHA indicates that changing public policy to incentivize park owners to sell their property to mobile homeowners, HUD properties and other nonprofits would create more housing security.

“We’re seeing that, especially with seniors, they already have to make tough decisions about where to live,” said Christine Didion, of Area Agency on the Aging of Pasco-Pinellas.

Didion said the trend of mobile home parks being sold for luxury development has forced evictions.

“We want to work with those lawmakers to support any type of measure that is going to make housing attainable, affordable and safe,” she said.

Velasco says her family can’t afford to move, but staying is becoming harder to do.

“I think it’s a lot to ask for a lot that management does not maintain,” she said.