"The Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards"
Improvement Act
Who is this improvement for?

We will discuss misconceptions or misrepresentations of RICK LAZIO’S Bill “The Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Improvement Act". This legislation is anything but an improvement for the consumers of this product. It will serve the needs of the manufactured housing industry to increase profit margins by reducing the quality, safety, and durability which has already been accomplished to some extent by HUD in the last 10 years and most noticeably under the tenure of Cuomo and Apgar. The other purpose of this legislation is to propagate the inept or non-existent management of the federal manufactured housing program by the current administration of HUD and to legitimize Cuomo and Apgar’s failure or unwillingness to uphold the laws of the United States.

This legislation will require HUD to promote this product as being safe, durable and of quality while scientific studies have compared the safety of this product in high winds to being less than that of a motor vehicle. The rest of this article will detail misrepresentations made about this legislation to lawmakers. The real purpose of this legislation has nothing to do with improving the quality of life for the consumers of this product. I will use direct quotes from Rick Lazio, manufactured housing industry leadership, the law and proposed law to demonstrate that this legislation is not for the purpose that it is being held out to Congress and the public to be for. 

Here is a quote from Rick Lazio to let you know who provided Mr. Lazio as well as other members of Congress with their information on manufactured housing:

Congressman Rick Lazio of New York
"The Manufactured Housing Coalition has done a good job educating Members of Congress and their staff about the evolution of the industry and the types of individuals and families now buying manufactured housing".

It is obvious from the rest of the Rick Lazio’s interview that I will be taking quotes from that he did not bother to confirm if what the manufactured housing coalition was telling him was fact or fiction. Regardless of who educated Rick Lazio he has introduced with the help of the manufactured housing industry, legislation that only serves the needs of the manufactured housing industry and to legitimize Cuomo and Apgar’s failure to uphold the laws of the United States.

The Manufactured Housing Coalition - MHARR (Manufactured Housing Association of Regulatory Reform) and MHI (Manufactured Housing Institute)

With the exception of AARP who has stated that this legislation is bad and they did what they could to make it better, I know of no other consumer organization that supports this legislation even though the industry claims there are many, they just don't mention them by name. We want to make it clear that AARP's position on this legislation is of their own choice and DOES NOT represent the position of most if not all of the manufactured homeowner organizations in this country.  This legislation is bad for the consumers of this product and everything AARP has done to remedy this through negotiations has been half measures and does nothing to change the fact that this is bad legislation.

On the contrary, the many manufactured housing groups that I have discussed this with are hopping mad about this legislation. They lack the financial recourses to mount any kind of a significant campaign to counter the deceptions being presented by the manufactured housing coalition and Rick Lazio to lawmakers that are propelling this legislation forward. This legislation will have a negative impact on not only millions of manufactured homeowners and consumer to come, but on those who live around manufactured housing as well.

Let’s start off with a quote from the President of the Manufactured Housing Institute, Chris Stinebert. This will give you the understanding of why the industry desperately wants this legislation to pass and they have spent 100’s of thousands of dollars with various members of Congress and in some key States to finance this legislation.

President of the Manufactured Housing Institute, Chris Stinebert
"Additionally, while the industry has never had better advocates at HUD, both Secretary Cuomo and FHA Commissioner Bill Apgar will be out of office sometime next year. We have no guarantees that the next Secretary and Commissioner will be as favorable to the industry".

We thought that HUD's motto was "HUD IS ON YOUR SIDE"? Presented in the context that this statement is made a consumer would assume that this meant their side. From the statement by Chris Stinebert above it would appear that in the case of manufactured housing that HUD IS ON YOUR SIDE means the side of the manufactured housing industry. "The Federal Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standard" mandates that HUD should be the consumer's advocate so if Cuomo and Apgar are the industry's advocates, who are the consumers advocate? It can't be HUD because they are the industry's advocates.

Secretary of Housing Andrew Cuomo and FHA Commissioner Apgar have blatantly ignored their duties to enforce the federal regulations and standards that governs the Federal Manufactured Housing program. What the industry can not count on is that the next Secretary of Housing and FHA Commissioner will do the same for them. This is what has created a sense of urgency in the industry to get this legislation passed while they still have friends at HUD that will help the industry misrepresent the purpose of this legislation. Secretary Cuomo and FHA Commissioner Apgar both have motives for supporting this legislation and they have nothing to do with improving this program for the benefit of consumers. It has everything to do with legitimizing the state of deterioration that this federal program is currently in.

This is what Rick Lazio and the manufacturer housing industry coalition are holding up, as the there is a need for this legislation.
To modernize the requirements under the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974.

Lets take a look at the requirements of the 1974 Act to see what the requirements are that need to be modernized. First there is the congressional purpose for the 1974 Act

CONGRESSIONAL PURPOSE OF THE 1974 ACT
The Congress Declares that the purpose of this chapter are to reduce the number of personal injuries and deaths and the amount of insurance costs and property damage resulting from manufactured home accidents and to improve the quality and durability of manufactured homes. Therefor, the Congress determines that it is necessary to establish Federal construction and safety standards for manufactured homes and to authorize manufactured home safety research and development. (Modernize)

This next part of the Act is the bases for the standards and regulations. This is the only criterion for establishing the standards.

STANDARDS AND REGULATIONS
Each such Federal manufactured home standard shall be reasonable and shall meet the HIGHEST standards of PROTECTION, taking into account existing State and local laws relating to manufactured home safety and construction.

This is what Rick Lazio and the manufactured housing industry coalitions are saying needs to be modernized. All of the standards for the construction of manufactured housing are based on the two paragraphs above. I did not know that the objectives above were old fashion and it is hard to fathom how you would MODERNIZE this purpose or objective. What do you think, are these purposes or objectives old fashion and no longer necessary in today’s society or in the future?

Let’s take a look at the next quote from Rick Lazio, I will be putting quotes in quotation marks from here to the end and the name of who made the statement above the statement in Italics. This i s the same information being passed around on Capital Hill to garner support for this Bill.

Congressman Rick Lazio of New York
"Unfortuanently, the 25 year-old Manufactured Housing Act is not keeping up with THE NEEDS OF THE CHANGING INDUSTRY AND PRODUCT".

Lets take a look at what the industry says about this 25 year old law not keeping up with the needs of the changing industry and its product.

The Manufactured Housing Journal, January 2000 page 29
"Manufacturers can introduce design improvements within months, new safety devices within days, and customized alterations within hours of the home heading down the line". "We are totally unique in this respect" President of the Manufactured Housing Institute, Chris Stinebert We agree. The MHI Urban Design/Urban infill demonstration program (Wilkinsburg, PA) the LIDO project in California and the New Colony Village in Jessup, Maryland are recent examples of the code's flexibility to innovate.

What is changing in the industry that the congressional purpose above is not suited for? What the Lazio Bill does accomplish is lowering the standards for SAFETY from HIGHEST standards of protection to HIGH standards of protection and this would suit the industry needs to lower the cost of producing its product and therefor increase its profit margin. How many out their think we should sale new cars with half measure safety devices installed that may or may not work when needed if it will serve to lower the cost of producing the product to the automaker? Note in his statement that there is no mention of the needs of the consumer.

Congressman Rick Lazio of New York
"The Act was originally designed to transition manufactured housing from the old trailer-model into a more reliable, alternative source of affordable housing"

This statement by Lazio does not resemble the 1974 congressional purpose. There is no mention in the Act as to it being for the purpose of transitioning manufactured housing from the old ways to the new ways or to producing an alternative source of affordable housing. What the Lazio Bill will accomplish is allowing the industry to return to the old ways of doing business before the 1974 Act. The regulations and standards established by this Act are not transitional and serve to carry out the purpose of this Act, which is to protect the lives of this country's citizens.

Our Congressmen who drafted this legislation and passed it into law in 1974 wisely left any mention of cost (affordability) to the manufacturer out of the Act. Too include affordability to the manufacturer would create conflict as to the purpose of the Act, which is SAFETY, QUALITY, and DURABILITY not the profit margin of the industry.

The proposed legislation by Lazio places the inferences on “Affordability” just as his statement says and not on Safety, Quality, or Durability as Congress mandated in 1974. Under this legislation if safety, quality, and durability cost something can it be left out to satisfy affordability?  If it cost something to assure that a home conforms to the federal standards that government may not have the authority to enforce? These are the kind of interpretations that will be left open to the new consensus committee which will be dominated by the industry by its access to resources, money, and knowledge of the business. These resources will not be available at the same level to the other members of the committee.

This legislation announces that the congressional objective of 1974 Act of safety, quality, and durability has been achieved and for this reason there are no provisions in this legislation to further these objectives. The only provisions in this legislation that relate to safety, quality, and durability are for HUD to promote that such is true. We are telling you as the people who are in the trenches with manufactured homeowners that this could not be further from the truth.

To help lawmakers understand what the current level of safety, quality and durability of manufactured housing we will provide you with information from a study by Professor Thomas Schmidlin of Kent State University.

In the past 20 years, 45% of all U.S. tornado deaths have been in mobile homes, even though only 7% of the population occupy them.

The risk of injury or death is so great during severe weather that the National Weather Service advises mobile home residents to take shelter in a ditch or VEHICLE if a tornado threatens.

We think it is important to note that 2 persons killed in the recent tornado that swept through Georgia took the Weather Service advisory and sought shelter in a ditch. They were killed when a manufactured home that had been hurled through the air landed on them.

Have we reached the point in time where corporate profits are more important that human life? If lawmakers pass this legislation into law it will mark that we have reached that point in time.

Congressman Rick Lazio of New York
"The HUD-code (standards) is frozen in time, and our process for changing the code is cumbersome and often ineffective". "Hopefully this legislation will improve the process and break the history of mistrust between the industry, HUD, and the consumers."

To get a better understanding of frozen in time let's take another look at the industry publication.

The Manufactured Housing Journal, January 2000 page 29
"Manufacturers can introduce design improvements within months, new safety devices within days, and customized alterations within hours of the home heading down the line". "We are totally unique in this respect" President of the Manufactured Housing Institute, Chris Stinebert We agree. The MHI Urban Design/Urban infill demonstration program (Wilkinsburg, PA) the LIDO project in California and the New Colony Village in Jessup, Maryland are recent examples of the code's flexibility to innovate.

Lets take another look at what the 1974 Act sets as the requirement for the creation of the standards:

Each such Federal manufactured home standard shall be reasonable and shall meet the HIGHEST standards of PROTECTION, taking into account existing State and local laws relating to manufactured home safety and construction.

Should not the highest standard of protection be forever frozen in time? Lazio’s bill lowers HIGHEST standards of PROTECTION to HIGH standards of PROTECTION. This is the single greatest indicator that the purpose of the Lazio Bill is to place inferences on affordability and gravitate away from Safety, Quality, and Durability as being the primary objective of the Federal Construction and Safety Standards. There can be no other purposes for lowering this mandate of law if not to satisfy “affordability", which is undefined in the Lazio Bill. If lawmakers will take the time to read through this legislation they will discover, with the exception of having a federal agency enter the private marketplace to promote manufactured housing that affordability is the sole and only purpose of this legislation. Next the term frozen in time, the congressional purpose authorizes for the purpose of manufactured home safety research and development and mandates that improvements be made to the quality, safety and durability of manufactured housing forever. There is no time limit to this purpose and in fact HUD has spent at least $40,000,000 dollars for this purpose over the last 5 years. I do have to admit though that it is impossible to know how much of this 40 million or so dollars was spent on this congressional purpose since HUD in conjunction with this research and development, has been developing marketing strategies for the industry. All this time HUD has been claiming to lack the funding to promulgate and enforce the standards.

Lets address the part of Lazio’s statement where he says the process for changing the code is cumbersome and often ineffective. The next paragraph taken from the 1974 Act explains the basic requirement for changing the standards.

The Secretary shall, to the EXTENT FEASIBLE, consult with the Advisory Council prior to establishing, AMENDING, OR REVOKING any manufactured home construction or safety standard pursuant to the provisions of this chapter.

And

Consider the probable effect on such standard on the cost of the manufactured home TO THE BUYING PUBLIC.

Nothing in this paragraph would indicate a cumbersome process. The minimum requirement for changing the standards is as simple as presenting to the Secretary a finding that there is cause to amend or revoke some or all of the regulations. The Secretary of Housing verifies that it meets the congressional purpose of the act, considers the cost to the consumer, NOT THE INDUSTRY, and the Secretary can make it so with no further delay. That is unless the Secretary chooses to ignore federal law and considers the cost to the manufacturer, which has been the case over the last decade and most notably during Cuomo and Apgar's tenure as the leaders of FHA / HUD.

Cuomo can convene the Advisory Council to help with this at any time he desires, but Cuomo has not during his tenure as the Secretary of Housing. Cuomo sited a lack of funding as the reason for this failure. The truth is that the fees collected by HUD from the industry went unused for so long at one point in time that it became necessary to issue a credit for fees to the industry. More recently it became necessary to expend $3,000,000 dollars of unused fee dollars on computers to keep from issuing another credit to the industry. The justification by HUD for the expenditure of label / Inspection fees on computers was that it was needed to promulgate the standards and regulations. Wait a minute, what did they say? Cuomo and Apgar said that the law prohibited the use of label inspection fees to promulgate the regulations and standards as the reason for not convening the Advisory Council to promulgate the regulations and standards.  It was not a lack of funding that caused Cuomo not to convene the Advisory Council but a desire to keep the people with the knowledge to debate the merits of HUD's policy towards the industry from intervening in the process.

The part about considering the cost to the consumer and not the industry is what has caused many of the delays in making changes to the regulations and standards. Each time the Secretary advanced changes to the regulations for the purpose of carrying out the Act the industry has aggressively resisted such changes because of the cost (affordability) to the industry.  An example of this was the wind load standards recommended after Hurricane Andrew. It took 2 years for HUD to establish the new wind load standards. The industry bitterly fought the changes not because these changes did not serve the public exigency as stated in the 1974 Act but because of the cost (AFFORDABILITY) to the industry. Envision an industry that resisted a change that would protect the lives of the public combined with the Lazio Bill should it pass and affordability (undefined) becomes the purpose Federal Manufactured Housing program, what will manufactured housing become? I can answer this for you; it will become the housing that created the need for the 1974 legislation in the first place and under Cuomo and Apgar has already began this trek.

Lazio statement says that it is the hope of this legislation to end the mistrust between HUD, the industry, and the consumer. Remember the quote at the beginning of the article by the President of the Manufactured Housing Institute, Chris Stinebert. Does this sound like there is a trust problem between the industry and HUD? There is mistrust by consumers of the coalition woven in deceit that exists between the industry leadership, Andrew Cuomo, and Bill Apgar. This legislation will do nothing to change this mistrust and once Cuomo and Apgar are gone will serve to perpetuate and even increase the mistrust by consumers of government and industry that has been created by Cuomo and Apgar’s failure to uphold the laws of the United States.

Congressman Rick Lazio of New York
"The Manufactured Housing Improvement Act will ensure that significant improvements will be made in the quality, safety and affordability of manufactured homes and the federal management of the program".

This statement by Rick Lazio is a contradiction to the very purpose of the Act that he introduced on behalf of the industry.

Here is a few of the purposes defined in the Lazio Bill, there are no other that come any closer to offering support for Lazio’s statement.

(1) to facilitate the acceptance of the quality, durability, safety, and affordability of manufactured housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development;

(6) to establish a balanced consensus process for the development, revision, and interpretation of Federal construction and safety standards for manufactured homes and related regulations for the enforcement of such standards;

(8) to ensure that the public interest in, and need for, affordable manufactured housing is duly considered in all determinations relating to the Federal standards and their enforcement.

Number 1 is the only mention of quality in the purpose of the Lazio Bill. Note that this does not say that the purpose of the Act is to improve the quality, durability, and safety of manufactured housing. It only says that HUD should enter the marketplace to promote the quality, durability, and safety of manufactured housing. HUD’s job if the Lazio Bill passes will be to promote this as being the case even if it is not true and it is not. Cuomo and Apgar have allowed the product produced by this industry to migrate towards the conditions prior to the 1974 Act. It may look prettier on the surface, but underneath it is inferior in quality, durability, and safety to the manufactured housing that was constructed prior to the Cuomo and Apgar tenure. Why is this, it is because Cuomo and Apgar have ignored the tenants of the 1974 Act and allowed cost to the manufacturer to become the primary purpose of HUD’s policy towards the manufactured housing industry.

Number 6, from a federal management stand point what could be easier than sitting back and letting someone else do all the work and in this case it will be the industry controlled consensus committee. Another red flag in this whole debate is that the industry controlled consensus committee will determine how the regulations that they write will be enforced upon them. The industry has fought for a long time to do away with the provision in the current Act that made a manufacturer criminally liable if they knowingly placed consumers lives in imminent danger and did nothing to warn the homeowner or correct the defect. If the Lazio bill passes the industry will finally have its wish on this one. How about it, do you think that we should allow automakers and aircraft industry to write the regulations and standards for their product and decide how they will be punished if people are injured or killed as a result of violating the standards and regulations that they wrote? This is what the Lazio bill will do for the manufactured housing industry.

Number 8, this is just to drive home that the Lazio Bill has nothing to do with improving the quality, durability, and safety of manufactured housing. Note that the primary purpose of the Lazio Bill is the need for affordable manufactured housing, savings which will not be passed on to consumers. The industry seeks to maximize profits on every home and will charge whatever the market will bear for their product. There is nothing wrong with making a profit unless you are doing it at the cost of the safety of the persons who will be using your product. The consumer will get it from three ways under the provisions of the Lazio Bill; first the cost savings will not be passed on to the consumer. Second, without durability and quality being a long-term consideration in the cost to the consumer, the consumer will be saddled with high operating and maintenance expenses. Third, the manufactured homeowner consumer will be relegated to a second class citizen status not worthy of a safe home if it will cost the industry anything to make a safe product. This occurs to often now, but this is not the result of out of date or deficient Regulations and Standards. This is the result of an industry, which does not follow or resists following the standards and regulations and Cuomo and Apgar’s unwillingness to follow and enforce upon the industry the laws of United States.

References
Modern Homes, July – August 1999
Senate Bill 1452, The Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standard Improvement Act
Title 42 Sec 5401 et. The Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standard

The American Internet Society of Manufactured Homeowners
John Taylor
TAISMHO